语言与图像的关系问题，已成为当前文艺理论研究必然面对的一个话题。历史上的“竹林七贤图”是依据“竹林七贤”的人和事而进行的图像创作。“竹林七贤”不只是历史上七位放浪不羁、纵情肆志的贤达人士的统称，更成为魏晋南北朝时期乃至此后文学艺术发展史中一个特殊的文化符号，它承载着历史，彰显着当下，又昭示着未来。竹林七贤图像文本既源于语言文本，形成了“因文生图”型的“语-图”互文模式；又溢出、游离了语言文本，形成对后者的超越甚至僭越。图像文本对语言文本的僭越，源于“图言”或“象语”，即图像的无声言说以及读者“化图为语”的符号转译。图像作为意义的“结晶体”和“凝合物”，在面向读者时，经历了“符号敞开—心象凝结—像语生成—意义释放”的“由像及语”过程。图像文本在内在机理上对语言文本实现僭越的同时，自身亦升华为一种“表意工具”，甚至成为一种“批评形态”。至此，图像真正进入话语中心，真正成为意义存在，图像表征、图像隐喻、图像修辞以及图像时代的来临得以成立，图像对语言的僭越最终完成：不仅我们拥有图像，而且图像开始拥有我们。文艺理论与批评真正进入了一个全新的发展时代。

Taking intersemiotic intertextual play in the drawing of Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove as an example, this article investigates the intertwinement between language and image, a research topic worth a theoretical discussion, too, in the area of contemporary literary theory. This drawing generated with reference to the anecdotes of "Seven Sages" in ancient China is more a cultural marker of literature and art developed during the dynasties of Wei and Jin and thereafter than the epitome of unruly and indulged refined scholars. Apart from the verbal-dependent visual intertextuality, found within the drawing is the verbal-independent transcendence of the visual, an enrichment or transgression in meaning or other possible aspects of the latter independent of the former. Labelled as a self-developmental model, this verbal-independent transcendent process lends itself well to suggesting treating the visual component per se as a useful meaning producer and transmitter, which helps direct our attention to a new important research topic in the study of literary theory and criticism.