Night-Shining White

Night-Shining White

Inspired by a Han Gan painting of a favourite horse of the Tang Emperor Xuanzong (r. 712-56), and another Tang painting, Emperor Hsuan-tsung's Flight to Shu, I put together a book about the loss and longing of leaving a loved one behind you on the road.

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It’s been interpreted in different ways by others, but there is always the sense of this book’s being a impassioned backward glance.

For background information on the flight to Shu, Tang Dynasty Times offers an appropriate interpretation and links to some of the image’s poetic connotations.