南宋理宗嘉熙四年(1240)，畫家牟益（1178-1242年後）畫了一幅以南期詩人謝惠連(397-433)〈擣衣詩〉爲素材的「擣衣圖」，贈送給其友人書法家董更，這幅作品歷經五百多年以後，進入清期宮廷，現藏於臺北國立故宮博物院。所謂「擣衣」，是古代養蠶取絲，將生絲煮製後，用杵舂擣捶打以去除其表面的膠質，使其柔軟而富有彈性，便於著色和織成衣物的加工過程。古代社會分工「男耕女織」，製衣步驟中的「擣衣」工作原本即具有鮮明的性別色彩，然而，畫家描寫婦人擣衣並非爲了展現女性工作之辛勤，而是藉著擣衣傳達某種幽怨的女性美，牟益的「擣衣圖」即爲代表。牟益「擣衣圖」全長四六六•四公分，總共圖繪三十二個女子，依照謝惠連詩意作布局安排，畫中人物的行止可分爲五個段落：「整裝」、「抱練前行」、「擣衣」、「裁縫製衣」以及最後的「裝箱封寄」，整幅作品瀰漫著哀戚的情調，這種特殊的氛圍源於〈擣衣詩〉的內容。六朝以來興起的「擣衣」題材文學作品，是男性將聽覺所得「視覺化」的過程；畫家創作「擣衣圖」則是具象此視覺之美，使得聽聞中的女子顯現於眾人面前，被眾人看見。在牟益的「擣衣圖」中，我們看見男性畫家構設出男性詩人模擬的女性心聲，詩人與畫家都經過性別角色的扮演，代替主角發聲，而歷代的觀賞者則透過題跋文字與她們對話，尤其是清高宗乾隆的三度御覽，更是流露了對孝賢皇后的相思與悼念，爲牟益的「擣衣圖」增衍了新的心情故事。

In 1240, the Southern Song artist Mou Yi (1178-after 1242) did a painting based on the poem "Pounding Cloth" by the Southern Dynasty poet Xie Huilian (397-433). This painting entered the imperial collection in Qing times (it is now in Taipei's National Palace Museum). "Pounding cloth" (daoyi) refers to the process of producing raw silk. The conventional division of labor had men working in the fields and women at the loom: the task of "pounding cloth" was gender-specific. Painters, however, depicted women pounding cloth not to portray their hard labor, but to convey a melancholy female beauty through the act of pounding cloth. Mou's painting is a noted example of this. Mou's painting is over four meters long, featuring a total of thirty-two ladies. Following the structure of Xie Huilian's poem, the action of the women thereon can be divided into five sections. The sorrowful tone of this work actually originated from the "Pounding Cloth" poem. In the many literary works on this topic since the Six Dynasties, almost all were written from the perspective of a male writer hearing the sound of pounding in the night and imagining a lady pounding cloth. These male writers would then create a voice for the lady in her boudoir lamenting about having to make winter clothing for the faraway husband. Whereas the "pounding cloth" poems were a process of "visualization" of the aural experience, the "pounding cloth" paintings were to recreate this sense of beauty in visual images for the public eye. In this painting we see an example of how a male painter constructed the female voices as rendered by male poets: through gender role-playing, poets and painters spoke for the female protagonists. The women's voices are heard through the poems on the painting, providing the narratives for the silent images. Viewers in later times also participated in a dialogue with these female protagonists by writing colophons on the painting. For example, colophons from the three viewings of the painting by the Qianlong emperor (r. 1736-96) reveal his longing for the late Xiaoxian empress, adding yet another sentimental story to Mou's painting, and yet another layer of role reversal to this multivalent work.