所謂「詩意圖」，又稱「詩畫」或「詩圖」，是以詩文為題材，表達詩文內涵的繪畫。「題詩意圖詩」，顧名思義，即是關於詩意圖的題詠。
本文選擇詩意圖的三種基本類型的宋代作品，即圖繪陶淵明〈歸去來兮辭〉全篇內容的「歸去來圖」、摘取杜甫〈戲為韋偃畫雙松圖歌〉中「松根胡僧憩寂寞」詩句所作的「憩寂圖」、以及摹寫王維〈送元二使安西〉詩境的「陽關圖」為實例，從其圖繪的原詩、原詩的圖象表現與觀覽方式、題畫詩對於前二文本的解讀與闡釋，管窺其間生成創發之要義。
作者認為：手卷形式的「歸去來圖」延續六朝以來的敘事畫風格，觀覽手卷畫時，因畫卷的舒捲開合，畫中流動的時空結構以及敘事終始的隨機性，使得由圖象具現文字有如與淵明同歌「歸去來兮」，其題寫宛若追尋理想的紙上神遊，是解脫「心為形役」之苦的淨化過程。
取杜甫詩句的「憩寂圖」雖然以松下禪僧為題材，卻不以「松僧圖」命名，可知詩意圖的題目即隱含了必須通曉其文學典故方能領略畫意的文化要求，經過畫家摘取與淬煉，「憩寂圖」成為一幅時空定格卻餘意無窮的作品，尤其是蘇軾「不妨還作輞川詩」的遐想，更聯繫了「憩寂圖」與王維詩，直探完滿自足的心靈幽境。
「陽關圖」的觀賞與題寫則是另一番智性的哲思。王維〈送元二使安西〉詩被編入樂府，成為離筵傳唱的送行之歌，再被李公麟畫入尺幅，本身即幾經轉譯，形成富有深意的文化符碼，宋人題詠「陽關圖」，除了感受其間的離情別意，喟嘆山河變色，陽關迢遙，更從而思索「人事好乖，便當語離」的人生困境，並希冀昇華及超越離別之愁苦，「陽關圖」儘管以送別為主調，但是通過圖象表達的視覺經驗畢竟與實際的個人遭遇不同，因此又與送別題材的文學作品不同，由此亦可得見題畫詩的獨特文類性質。
作者並採納西方圖象學學者關於研究藝術品的意義所要經過的三個步驟來觀照詩意圖的欣賞與題詠，得知文學典故是創作詩意圖的活水源頭，因不同的歷史文化情境重生其圖象意義，而詩意圖的題寫則展示其反芻文化，賦予圖象象徵價值，吐故納新的智慧結晶。
《中國文哲研究集刊》第16期（2000年3月），頁1-64An Analysis of the Sung Dynasty Colophons to the “Pictures on Poetry”– Based on Colophons to the “Kui-ch’ü-lai-t’u”, “Ch’i-chi-t’u” and “Yang-kuan-t’u”Paintings which use poetic material and illustrate the meanings of the poetry are called “Pictures on Poetry.” These paintings sometimes are given colophons.
This essay focuses on three works showing basic kinds of Sung pictures on poetry: the “Kui-ch'ü-lai-t'u” illustrating Tao Yuan-ming's “Kui-ch'ü-lai-hsi tz'u”; the “Ch'i-chi-t'u” illustrating a line from Tu Fu's poem “Hsi-wei Wei Yen hua Shuang-sung-t'u ke” (“The song written playfully for Wei Yan's painting 'The Twin Pines'”) which reads, “The lonely rest of Hu Monk at the roots of the pine”; and the “Yang-kuan-t'u” illustrating Wang Wei's setting in “Sung Yuan-erh shih An-hsi.” From the original poem depicted in the painting, the mode of representation and perspective of the image of the original poem, and the way the colophon interprets and explicates these two, we can gain a better understanding of the creative process of these works of art.
In the author's view, the scroll of the “Kui-ch'ü -lai-t'u” seems to continue the style of narration from the Six Dynasties period. When one views the scroll, as it unrolls before one and then disappears into the other roll, the random series of spatio-temporal structures and narrative from beginning to end makes the graphic dimension resemble writing. The colophon is like searching for an ideal in the course of the imaginary journey on the paper. This experience relieves the pain of “the mind subservient to the body” and so is a process of purification.
As for the “Ch'i-chi-t'u” of Tu Fu, although the excerpted line takes the Ch'an monk under the pine tree as its subject, the picture is not called “Picture of a Monk at the Pine.” Clearly the picture on poetry implies a cultural demand that its topic be bound up with the literary background in order to comprehend the meaning of the picture. Having been excerpted and tempered by the painter, “Ch'i-chi-t'u” becomes a work that is spatio-temporally frozen yet inexhaustible in its meaning. In particular, Su Shih's phrase “Pu-fang huan-tso Wang-ch'uan-shih” further associates the “Ch'i-chi-t'u” with the poetry of Wang Wei in order to complement the imaginary landscape and try to make it totally satisfying.
The appreciation and inscription of “Yang-kuan-t'u” is another kind of philosophical wisdom. Wang Wei's poem “Sung Yuan-erh shih An-hsi” has become part of the yue-fu tradition. It has become a song sung at the end of banquets, to send off guests. Li Kung-lin also painted it as a picture. Having been thus transferred and interpreted, it became a cultural code rich in significance. Besides dwelling on the sadness of departure and separation, the regrets of travel into foreign territories, and the remoteness of the Yang Pass where this incident took place, the Sung colophons to “Yang-kuan-t'u” further think about the difficulties of human life, observing that “human affairs are inconstant, then we must take leave.” It offers the hope of overcoming the bitterness of separation through sublimation. It is true that the major theme of “Yang-kuan-t'u” is seeing loved ones depart. However, the visual experience of the graphic expression is after all not the same as the actual vicissitudes encountered by different individuals. And this visual experience is in turn different from the literary works about farewells and departure. Thus we can see the unique literary quality of colophon poetry on the paintings.
The author also adopts three steps followed by western scholars of iconography to study artistic significance, in order to survey the way people view art and write colophons for it. We see that traditional episodes important for the literary arts are the creative sources for the pictures on poetry. Different cultural-historical circumstances can be represented to show their symbolic meanings, and the colophons to the pictures on poetry demonstrate that in the process of ruminating over them, they become endowed with graphic symbolic value; this is the crystallization of the wisdom of discarding the old and accepting the new.
Bulletin of the Institute of Chinese Literature and Philosophy, No. 16 (Mar. 2000), pp. 1-64.
