Ch: Lanting qushui. Lit. "meandering stream and orchid pavilion." A painting theme which refers to a gathering held in 353 at the Orchid Pavilion (Jp: Rantei 蘭亭) in Kuaiji 会稽, Zhejiang 浙江, held by the famous Eastern Jin calligrapher Wang Xizhi (Jp: *Ō Gishi 王義之, 321-79). In order to celebrate the annual Spring Purification Festival (held on the third day of the third month), Wang Xizhi invited 41 scholar-poets to engage in poetry and drinking while seated along the bank of a winding rivulet. Wang arranged for servants to float cups of wine down the stream, and those guests who had not yet written a poem before a cup had passed by were required to imbibe a penalty cup. From this event Wang assembled the poems of his friends and wrote his famous Lantingjixu (Jp: Ranteishūjo 蘭亭集序 or Preface to the Orchid Pavilion Compilation), a melancholy discourse on the meaning of life. The theme was very popular in Chinese painting, and became revered by the Japanese. According to both the Nihon shoki 日本書紀 and archaeological remains, a meandering stream built of stones was constructed in the southeast corner of the 8th-century Heijō-kyū 平城宮, probably so that aristocrats could re-enact the meandering stream party kyokusui-no-en 曲水の宴. Such re-enactments continue today at various locations. For sinophile Japanese painters the theme was symbolic of refined scholarly pleasure. Paintings of rantei kyokusui typically feature a number of scholars seated beside a twisting stream. Notable paintings include works by Kano Sansetsu 狩野山雪 (1589/90-1651; Zuishin-in 随心院, Kyoto), Nakayama Kōyō 中山高陽 (1717-80) and Yosa Buson 与謝蕪村 (1716-84, Tokyo National Museum).