Three Variations On The Yang Pass

Music and poetry are intertwined with Chinese Brushing paintings in the sense that they often inspire each other.  Scholars in the past were expected to excel in painting, writing poetry and calligraphy.  It was not uncommon then, for the artist to write a painting with strategic void spaces and garnish that with verses of calligraphy.   When I was studying Chinese painting, one of the routine was to paint something according to a poem.

Three Variations On The Yang Pass is a musical piece that is rich with history.  This iconic piece has been adapted for different musical instruments and instrumentation, both eastern and western and even choral adaptations.

The musical piece was borrowed from a poem by Wang Wei, a Tang dynasty poet.  The poem was incorporated into music, and subsequently amended with lyrics and 3 refrains, thus the three variations.   The poem is about Wang Wei seeing a friend off, and Yang Pass is a strategic stop for this intrepid journey.  The Pass was a military installation in the old days, and a sentry post on the southern branch of Silk Road.

Wang's friend was assigned to a outpost that is far from the heartlands of China.  The location of that outpost would have been today's Kuqa county in Xinjiang, China.  Wang supposedly said goodbye to his friend at what would be today's Xi'an.  I looked up Google map and the journey from Xi'an to Kuqa is a 36 days trek on foot crossing an arid landscape; nothing to sneeze at.

The following is the Google map showing the points of interest:

White dot is the starting point, Xianyang (Xi'an)
B is Yang Pass
A is the final destination, the outpost at Kuqa

I shall attempt to translate the poem that Wang wrote for the occasion of saying goodbye to his buddy:

The city was shrouded in a light sprinkle, settling the dust on the road
Willows by the inn sprouting green color
Bottoms up, let's finish yet another drink
Beyond Yang Pass there shall be no old acquaintance to be found

It is customary for Chinese to host a farewell dinner and a welcome home dinner for the traveller.  The welcome home affair is aptly named "Dust Cleansing Dinner".  In other words, retiring the grime and obstacles of the journey taken.  In this poem Wang cleverly borrowed the dust theme to pave way for his friend.  He was proclaming even the sky opened up with a gentle shower to settle the dust, meaning there would be nothing to hinder a smooth voyage.  A good omen.

The word inn painted a picture of travel, and willow is a homonym with the Chinese word "stay".  When Chinese present a willow twig as a token for the traveller, it is an expression of not wanting to part company and hoping the traveller would stay a while longer.

Thus the first two verses of the poem seemed to have depicted rain and inn and willow but Wang was actually setting the stage using metaphors.  He was supplying the prerequisite of the emotional content, priming our lachrymal ducts for what's to follow.

So let us say bottoms up to yet another drink, and how many drinks have we had?  This is your last drink for a while, buddy,  because soon you'll have no one to drink with.  That's gut-wrenching!

Such is the desolate destitute, please, won't you stay for me?  Don't go!

Wang ached.

Parting is such sweet sorrow is a line from Romeo and Juliet, expressing the affection between a man and a woman.  In Wang's poem, there is resigned sadness, for a closeness soon to be beyond reach.

That was my inspiration for my paintings

I also tried painting just one camel, with Yang Pass much closer in the landscape, trying to describe the post-farewell stage of the journey, amplifying the solitude

The two versions side by side