The relationship between a Chinese painting and a Chinese poem is often very strong. Sometimes the poem is a response to the painting or the painting is a response to the poem. By relating an artistic representation of a theme to another representation, a deeper understanding of the artistic whole can be gained. Shen Zhou created an artistic pairing of a painting and a poem titled “Poet on the Mountaintop.” Only with a study of both Shen Zhou's painting and poetry can one gain a complete understanding of the poet's struggle with his conflicting desires for freedom in nature and attachment to humanity. By shifting the focus of the poem from natural concepts to the poet's desire for humanity, Zhou uses the poem to express the poet's conflict over his desire for freedom. The beginning of the poem only describes nature settings and objects such as “white clouds,” “mountains,” and “stone ledge.” As the poem develops a sign of humanity, the “narrow road,” it is introduced but only as part of the natural world. This introduces the conflict between nature, or freedom, and humanity, or captivity. Once the conflict is established, the poet is presented as "alone", belonging neither to nature nor to civilization. Paralleling the beginning of the poem, the last stanza links the poet to some form of humanity, the “sound of your flute,” to establish the conflict between the poet and civilization. These parallels and conflicts force the reader to consider the relationship between being completely independent and completely attached to humanity. The poet himself struggles to resolve his desires for humanity in the flute player and for freedom in nature. Although the poet wishes “to be able to take the path of sound… in the center of the paper… or focus attention on certain elements of the poem, Zhou inserts specific and concrete image words such as “white,” “stone,” and “ bramble” to modify the elements of both nature and humanity. Because a painting can be considered as a whole, pairing it with poetry forces the viewer to consider more closely the individual elements described by these words; demonstrating that they have individual significance to the themes of the artistic ensemble. The struggle between freedom and attachment is not resolved by the specific pairing of the painting and the poem but expressed as a constant attempt to balance these two ideas. Studying the poem and the painting as a pairing adds dimension and significant amounts of understanding to how Shen Zhou considers the relationship between freedom and attachment. This exploration of themes creates a very strong connection between the poem and the painting.