When the taste of the New Year around us is getting stronger and stronger, and we are all busy saying goodbye to the old year, praying for peace, and welcoming the New Year, the Year of the Tiger has arrived. The tiger, ranked third in the traditional auspicious culture of the twelve zodiac signs, corresponds to the Yin in the twelve branches, the year of the tiger is the year of Yin. The ancients said: "The tiger is the yang thing, the chief of the hundred beasts, can fight and defeat sharp, and eat ghosts." "Although the tiger is the honor of a hundred beasts, in the minds of the Chinese people, it has always been a divine beast that incarnates justice, the protector of Guotai Min'an, and the symbol of xiangrui longevity." The image of the tiger is a very important graphic symbol in traditional Chinese culture, and a large number of paintings and folk crafts with the theme of the tiger have been left in history.
Jin Dynasty tiger head porcelain pillow
The Eastern Jin Dynasty historian Gan Bao recorded in the Book of Search for Gods: "In this customary law, every time the wax ends in Chinese New Year's Eve, decorates the peach man, hangs the weso, draws the tiger on the door, and places two lamps on the left and right, like a tiger sleeping, to drive away the ominous." "It describes that when people Chinese New Year's Eve, they draw tigers on the door of their homes to drive away evil spirits and avoid ghosts, defend their homes, and ensure peace. To this day, we still use the "tiger roaring and the wind" to express the meaning of blessings, which is generally a good expectation for the development of the cause, hoping that the other party can show its grand plan and make a great achievement.
In the pre-Qin period, the level of productivity was limited, and people were helpless when they suffered natural disasters, and could only hope for the protection of divine beasts with great power, so the figure of the beast would often appear in the decoration of daily utensils, and the tiger was one of them. The Western Zhou bronze wine vessel "Tiger Cannibal" now in the Collection of the Izumiya Art Museum in Kyoto, Japan, has attracted attention with its peculiar shape. Its shape chooses the posture of holding a person in the two forefoots of the tiger, and the tiger opens its mouth wide, as if to contain the person in its mouth. In fact, it is difficult for us today to examine the original intention of the original tiger maker, but combined with the social life environment at that time, the "person" in the mouth of the tiger is very likely to represent the ghost. With the help of the mighty tiger to drive away evil spirits, the same role is also reflected in the graphic design of building materials by the ancients, such as the "White Tiger" Wadang. The ancients used the tiles of the four sacred beast figures in the construction of houses, one has the practical function of preventing the tiles from falling off, and the other is with the meaning of praying to the four gods to protect the peace of the family. As one of the four gods, the "White Tiger" represents the god of the West, the West is gold in the five elements, the color is white, and it is usually believed that the white tiger has many divine powers such as warding off evil spirits, praying for disasters, praying for abundance, as well as punishing evil and promoting good, getting rich, and marrying good fortune.
The Western Han Dynasty mistaken silver "Tangyang Marquis" tiger charm
The ancients usually cast and carved the soldier symbols that guaranteed the king's orders and dispatched troops into tiger symbols. The Tiger Charm is divided into two halves, the right half is stored in the imperial court, and the left half is issued to the generals who are outside the army, and when the troops are dispatched, two halves are needed to investigate and verify the truth before they can take effect. In ancient wars, there have been many stories related to tiger charms. For example, in the fifty-first time of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Cao Cao retreated north due to the defeat of the army at Chibi, Zhuge Liang took advantage of the emptiness of Nan County, ordered Zhao Yun to seize the city, captured the defenders and captured the Tiger Charm, and then used the Tiger Charm to trick the Jingzhou defenders, so that Zhang Fei took advantage of the situation to seize Jingzhou, and then concocted the Xiangyang defenders as they were, took the opportunity to order Guan Yu to attack Xiangyang, and the soldiers captured three cities without bloodshed, and the importance of the Tiger Charm in ancient military wars can be seen.
Folk crafts also often appear in the shape of thick and cute, colorful tiger image, people are accustomed to using the image of the tiger to convey love and blessings, borrowing the image of the tiger to reflect the vision and expectations. Traditional Chinese children's costumes such as tiger hats and tiger shoes have the auspicious meaning of driving away evil and avoiding evil and ensuring peace. People dress their children with tiger-shaped costumes, implying that children can be brave, strong, healthy and safe. Usually, tiger head shoes and tiger head hats need to be worn at the same time, and there is a custom of "men wearing red and women wearing green" in the choice of colors, which means that wangzi jackie chan and female chengfeng, showing people's good wishes and spiritual prayers for the healthy growth of their children.
Folk tiger head hat
Among the surviving works of Chinese art, the image of the tiger first appeared in ancient religious art. For example, the mural "Hunting Map" of the North Phi Western Wei Period in the main room of Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes 249 Caves, directly below the picture, the painter draws a tiger full of movement, ferocious roaring and jumping forward with a very concise and general brush, which seems to be a few lines outlined in a few strokes, but the exaggerated shape and smooth and spontaneous line drawing method full of power can be called a model of Chinese painting art "line modeling". In addition, the Northern Wei mural "Mahasattva Sacrificing Himself to Feed the Tiger" on the south wall of Cave 254 of Mogao Caves is the earliest surviving mural of Buddhist scriptures related to tigers, and we can see that the author of this mural adopts a very interesting "different time and same map" expression method, and paints all the storylines that occur at different time nodes on the same screen.
During the Tang and Song dynasties, the image of the tiger began to appear frequently in silk paintings, and the number of works painting tigers in this period was relatively large, and the expression methods also showed a diversified trend. In the Tang Dynasty painter Lu Lengjia's "Six Statues of The Venerables", Fuhu Luohan sits on a stone with a tin staff, his eyebrows are raised, and he glares at the fierce tiger lying in front of him. The author uses a steady "gossamer drawing" to outline the image of the character and the tiger, and the painting style is exquisite and vivid. The "Erzu Tonya Diagram", now in the National Museum of Tokyo, Japan, is an ink painting on paper painted by the fifth generation painter Shi Ke, and the author creatively uses the "reduced brush" ink painting method to present the scene of the Zen master Fenggan leaning on the chest and sleeping with the tiger in a large freehand way, where the image of the tiger is no longer fierce, and has become a god that has been enlightened and is in a safe form. The Tang Dynasty's "Records of Famous Paintings of Past Dynasties" and the Northern Song Dynasty's "Xuanhe Painting Notation" also record in detail Yan Liben, Bao Ding, Zhao Miao and other tiger painting masters.
Crouching Tiger Scroll (Qing Dynasty) Archen
Ming Dynasty court painter Zhu Duan's "Hongnong Crossing the Tiger" is now in the Palace Museum, which shows the historical story of the Eastern Han Dynasty, telling the story of Liu Kunren Hongnong's punctuality, outstanding political achievements, and deeply loved by the people. The painter outlines the mountain stone with concise lines, and renders the sky and water color with dripping ink, setting off the smokey snow scene on the riverbank. In addition, the Ming Dynasty painters Zhao Lian, Dai Jin, Shang Xi, etc. are all famous painters in history. At the end of the Ming Dynasty and the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, with the western missionaries entering China, the copperplate engravings and painting techniques in the Western books they brought with them began to spread in China, and the court paintings of the Qing Dynasty began to gradually accept and integrate the techniques of Western painting. In the early Qing Dynasty, court painters represented by Lang Shining integrated Western painting with traditional Chinese painting techniques to create a unique artistic style. In these paintings that combine Chinese and Western artistic characteristics, the image of the tiger is very common.
Tiger, Franz Mark
In ancient Western art works, animal figures such as lions, cows, sheep, pigeons, and snakes often appear, but we can hardly see the image of tigers. The main reason for this phenomenon is that tigers inhabit India-centered Asia, where few people in the West saw tigers before Alexander's expedition to India. With the increase of trade and cultural exchanges between the East and the West hundreds of years later, the image of the tiger gradually began to appear in Western painting. In the 17th century, the founder of the Bologna Academy of Fine Arts, Anibba Carracci, created a ceiling mural for the Palazzo Farnese in Rome, "The Triumph of Bacchus and Ariadne", which is the earliest Western academic art to paint the image of the tiger. In the picture, two tigers pull a cart in front of them, and the image of the tiger is relatively clumsy, small in size, and tame like a dog. After the nineteenth century, the representative painter of Romanticism, Delacroix, created "The Tigress and the Baby Tiger in Play", in this work, with Delacroix's super modeling ability, the bravery of the tiger was fully displayed, and the images of the two tigers almost occupied the entire picture, with a fat posture, strong limbs, and details handled very well. Delacroix's delicate painting style and accurate modeling have completely got rid of the childish atmosphere of early European painters painting tigers, and a series of works he created to paint tigers have set off a lot of waves in the European painting world. At the beginning of the 20th century, the tiger of the Western expressionist painter Franz Mark took on a new change. From 1910 onwards, Franz Mark focused on painting animal subjects, and he found in animals an essential beauty of simplicity and innocence that has not been tarnished by modern society. Franz Mark believed that art should not stop at the imitation of the appearance of things, but should reveal the objective spiritual essence hidden within the complex world. In his own words, art should express "what people see with their eyes, the spirit of abstraction." In this "Tiger", the image of the tiger is not shaped in a delicate way, but only combined with a geometric block, and the image of the tiger is summarized, integrated, and majestic.
"Double Tiger Distant View" Zhang Shanxiao
In modern times, there have been more and more Chinese painters who paint tigers. Qi Baishi, Zhang Shanxiao, Xu Beihong, and Liu Jijie have all painted tigers, and their creative methods and technical means have their own characteristics. Qi Baishi's "Tiger Axis Diagram" is a school of its own, breaking the traditional painting method of showing people with the positive image of the tiger, only painting the back of the tiger, but through the twisted figure of the tiger's back, we can feel its kingly style of not being moved by the surrounding environment and being solipsistic. Zhang Shanxiao is a recognized master of tiger painting, self-proclaimed "tiger idiot", he once fed tiger sketches, opposite to the tiger day and night, in his life to create a large number of tiger pictures, the tiger is not lost in the mighty and strong, but also full of human warmth. At the beginning of 1940, U.S. Air Force Colonel Chennault led the U.S. Air Force Volunteer Corps to aid China in combat, and Zhang Shanxiao painted the "Flying Tiger Map" and gave it to Chennault, who immediately renamed the volunteer team "Flying Tiger Team" and distributed many flags and badges according to the "Flying Tiger Map". Who would have thought that a work of art would make a historical story. Xu Beihong is known for his good at drawing horses, but his tigers are also unique. In 1943, Xu Beihong's auspicious painting "Statue of the God of Wealth Riding the Tiger" is one of the representatives, and the inscription in the painting reads: "Painting a cat is also a peaceful life, and it is quite hard to camp and wave gold." Please come out of Brother Zhao without any other intentions, and watch him ride the tiger so happy. Written on the first day of the reign of Emperor Yan, Shuhua Ren's sister-in-law provided for it. Sorrow. "Although the characters and tigers in the picture are somewhat exaggerated, they are also interesting. Modern painter Liu Jijie adhered to the family learning, since childhood by his father, the famous flower, bird and animal painter Liu Kuiling, painting a tiger, a must, well-known in Tianjin. Liu Jijie's "Tiger Diagram" can be extremely rational, the shape and technique are integrated with Chinese and Western painting, the painting style is rigorous, the work and writing are combined, and it is a school of its own.
"Riding the Tiger God of Wealth" Xu Beihong
Although the tiger is the honor of a hundred beasts, it is not far from our lives and is an important theme in the creation of ancient and modern Chinese and foreign art. Through the analysis of the above works, we can roughly see that human understanding of tigers has a gradual process of change. In early society, productivity was low, and human beings feared nature, so the image of the tiger was abstracted into a divine beast symbol to protect mankind; with the continuous deepening of human understanding of nature and the improvement of the ability to conquer nature, the image of the tiger also gradually evolved into an appendage that highlighted imperial power and religious power; today, man and nature began to achieve dynamic harmony and unity, in the process, the distance between the tiger and humans was constantly narrowed. However, no matter how it changes, as an important symbol and spiritual symbol in traditional Chinese culture, the tiger always represents victory and glory in our hearts, symbolizes bravery and fearlessness, and protects peace and auspiciousness.
Fu Hu Xianrui, the footsteps of the Lunar Year of the Tiger are approaching, and the long-awaited Beijing Winter Olympics will also kick off at the beginning of the Year of the Tiger, on the occasion of this hundred blessings and perfection, I wish all readers to add wings and show their grand plans in the new year!
Author: Huang Huasan (Professor, School of Art, Chinese Min University), Wang Lirui (Graduate Student, School of Art, Chinese Min University)
Tiger (calligraphy) Sun Xiaoyun