Prologue: A historical overview of Six Dynasties aesthetics / Zong-Qi Cai --
PART I: IMAGES AND REPRESENTATIONS: PAINTING, CALLIGRAPHY, AND GARDEN CONSTRUCTION --
Replication and deception in calligraphy of the Six Dynasties period / Robert E. Harrist Jr. --
The essay on painting by Wang Wei (415-453) in context / Susan Bush --
Xie He's 'Six laws' of painting and their Indian parallels / Victor H. Mair --
A good place need not be a nowhere: the garden and utopian thought in the Six Dynasties / Shuen-Fu Lin --
PART II: WORDS AND PATTERNS: POETRY AND PROSE --
The unmasking of Tao Qian and the indeterminacy of interpretation / Kang-I Sun Chang --
Crossing boundaries: transcendents and aesthetics in the Six Dynasties / Rania Huntington --
Literary games and religious practice at the end of the Six Dynasties: the Baguanzhai poems by Xiao Gang and his followers / François Martin --
PART III: THE PARAMETERS OF SIX DYNASTIES AESTHETICS: MODES OF DISCOURSE --
Shishuo xinyu and the emergence of aesthetic self-consciousness in the Chinese tradition / Wai-Yee Li --
Nature and higher ideals in texts on calligraphy, music, and painting / Ronald Egan --
The conceptual origins and aesthetic significance of 'shen' in Six Dynasties texts on literature and painting / Zong-Qi Cai