Abstract: The image quartet - wind, flower, snow and moon - representing four specific scenes between the Cangshan Mountain and the Erhai Lake is a symbol unique to Dali. First appearing in poems of Yang Fu, a hermit of early Ming Dynasty (1368–1644), these images were used to symbolize the Dali Kingdom (937–1094. 1096–1254) that was defended by natural screens - the Cangshan Mountain on one side and the Erhai Lake on the other. In these images the distress and melancholy of the Bai people of Dali between dynasties were shown. This image quartet evolved in two directions in the Ming Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911), one being the well-known folk tales about the four images depicting the survival of the common people in distressed solemnity, and the other being the aesthetic deconstruction of them by both the Han and Bai intellectuals using the Han poetic techniques of inspiration and imitation to express intangible emotions of the authors through tangible objects. In modern society, “aesthetic need” emerged as a result of the split between the inner and outer worlds of modern people. Artists, writers, media and modern commerce, therefore, applied artistic techniques and technology to produce one after another “aesthetic illusions” to temporarily “sew up” such split. Dali is consequently subject to poetic construction for purposes of modern tourism and consumer ideology to represent it as the home for souls longing for seclusion from the madding urban world. This image quartet of wind, flower, snow and moon, or arguably an aesthetic illusion, eventually becomes a symbol and gimmick in the poetic construction of Dali to serve the audience as a form of spiritual treatment.

Key words: Dali, wind, flower, snow, moon, image, aesthetic illusion