Xiao Bi paints carefully and meticulously, and later generations can hardly match him. When he paints on silk, he executes every stroke precisely in accordance with the real scenery. He once painted on a dainty round fan a landscape on which you can see the scenery of hundreds of miles into the distance. In the painting, mountains which are thousands of feet high can be discerned within a square-inch space. (Yao Zui: A Sequel to the Criticism of Painting)

Critics say that a landscape painting can appear to be stretching ten thousand li on a very small piece of paper. The key point here is whether an overwhelming impact can be achieved. Without such impact,even if a vast landscape is squeezed into an extremely limited space, the result will be just another all-inclusive map of the country easily available in The Geography Guidebook. A five-character quatrain,which is supposed to present a big picture in extremely few words, puts the creation of power above all else. Only poets in the golden years of the Tang Dynasty can truly understand this marvel. For example, between poetic lines such as “May I ask where you live, stranger? I live in Hengtang not far from here. Let’s halt our boats and ask more about each other, for after all we might be folks from the same hometown,” a tremendous poetic impact keeps hovering even though details are omitted. So much affection is conveyed where no words are actually said.

(Wang Fuzhi: Desultory Remarks on Poetry from Ginger Studio)