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Art History
General Terms
Ch: Xiyuanyaji. Lit. "Elegant Gathering in the Western Garden." A pictorial subject depicting an imaginary literati party at the villa garden of the courtier-painter Wang Shen (Jp: Ō Sen 王詵, ca 1036-after 1100). The event was invented to bring together over a dozen of the leading Northern Song dynasty poets and painters including Su Dongpo (Jp: So Tōba 蘇東坡), Mi Fu (Jp: Bei Futsu 米芾, 1052-1107) and Li Gonglin (Jp: Ri Kōrin 李公麟, ca 1049?-1106) who is supposed to have painted the festivities. As a literati theme, the Elegant Gathering was painted in China, especially by professional masters of the Ming dynasty, and by *nanga 南画 painters in Japan.