“Community on Paper”: Scroll Paintings and the Emotional Practices of Chinese Literati

Scroll painting is a unique medium of emotion:it integrates poetry,calligraphy,and painting into one,serving as an excellent tool for personal expression.It embodies characteristics of fluidity,connectivity,and openness,functioning not only as a “social medium” for emotional interaction and maintaining friendships but also as a vehicle for cross-temporal emotional dialogue between people of different eras.There exists a bidirectional relationship between scroll painting and traditional Chinese emotional culture:on one hand,the various emotional practices facilitated by scroll painting enrich and deepen traditional Chinese emotional culture;on the other hand,scroll painting itself is an innovative product of traditional emotional culture,reflecting the characteristics of “Chinese-style emotions” such as shared experiences,mutual resonance,reciprocity,and perpetual vitality.Scroll painting offers a set of “Chinese-style emotional solutions” — empathizing with all things,resonating with history,creatively constructing a spiritual world,maintaining friendships,and shaping a community of values.When we shift our research focus on scroll painting from static “texts” to dynamic “practices”, moving from “objects” to “people”, we can unearth the exquisite wisdom of traditional emotional culture from scroll paintings,thereby expanding our emotional insight.