Introduction
Su Shi (1037–1101) and others in the Northern Song Dynasty sought to integrate the arts of painting and poetry, regarding painting as "silent” poetry and poetry as "intangible" or "aural" painting, bringing poetry and painting together in art and literary circles. Expressing sounds in a visual medium challenged painters on the one hand and influenced painting's development on the other. Works passed down through the ages depict aural experiences––people listening to wind in the pines, flowing spring water, falling rain, or the melodies of a zither––representing musical, natural, and human sounds pictorially, to the delight of all who stop and lend an ear.