A playful and cute tiger, lying on all fours, covered with yellow and black ornaments, a pair of round eyes are bright, agile and majestic... At the "Year of the Tiger Laughing Yin - Spring Festival Exhibition of the Year of the Tiger in China and Japan" jointly launched by the Shanghai Museum and the National Museum of Kyushu in Japan, this "Golden Dynasty Yellow Ground Black Colored Goose Reed Pattern Tiger Pillow" and "Meng" turned over the scene.
The ingenuity of using Crouching Tiger as a pillow and "sleeping with a pillow tiger" at night and night, the ancient Chinese people used tiger elements to do "cultural creation", which is inevitably amazing. Looking closely, this tiger pillow is low in front of and back high, and the back is just a smooth pillow surface, which can be described as a combination of artistic shape and comfort.
Shangbo experts said that the tiger pillow has the meaning of auspiciousness and ward off evil spirits, and the ceramic tiger pillow is a very distinctive living tool prevalent in the Jin Dynasty, roughly white land and yellow land, and the main production area is in Shanxi and Henan. Judging from archaeological excavations, its use range is concentrated in the Yellow River Basin. And this "Golden Dynasty Yellow Ground Black Color goose reed pattern tiger pillow" is a fine product. The craftsmen of that year first used white makeup soil on the tiger, then "covered" it with yellow color, and finally depicted the "tiger spot" in black color, and the pillow surface was painted with black painted goose reed patterns, and the brushwork was vivid and lively.
At the Exhibition of the Year of the Tiger jointly held by China and Japan, there is another ancient "cultural creation" of "tiger heads and tiger brains" - the Gilded Tiger Town of the Western Han Dynasty. This is also a Crouching Tiger, with a tabby pattern on its body and a "collar" on its neck! Compared to the Tiger Pillow, this Tiger Town is full of weight, filled with lead, weighs 3600 grams, and is extremely stable to use.
According to reports, Xizhen is a heavy object used by the ancients to fix the four corners of the mat. In the Qin and Han dynasties and earlier, the main way people lived at that time was to "sit on the ground". Therefore, in order to avoid folding the corners of the seat when getting up and sitting, worrying about clothes and ornaments, and affecting the manners, people often use the seat to keep the seat flat. From this point of view, this tiger town (tiger-shaped seat town) was really the top "cultural creation" at that time!
"Tiger, yang, the chief of a hundred beasts." Since ancient times, China has been the habitat and cultural homeland of tigers, and has also left behind a wealth of archaeological remains, documentary records, myths and legends related to tigers. In folk customs, the tiger has a beautiful meaning such as eliminating disasters and warding off evil spirits. Yang Zhigang, director of the Shanghai Museum, said that he wished everyone a tiger in the new year, defeated the epidemic and ushered in good luck.
Reporter: Sun Liping
Editors: Li Zhengyan, Luan Ruohui
Images courtesy of respondents
Source: Xinhua News Agency