Bat patterns are extremely special in the history of Chinese patterns, regarded as the embodiment of hope, happiness and beauty, which is in contrast to the cultural impression that Westerners believe that bats are ugly and are the embodiment of monsters such as vampires.
Traditional Chinese auspicious allegorical patterns, from the Qin and Han dynasties are commonly used in wadang, copper mirrors and brocades, although it is not uncommon to see the words Fu, Shou, Kang, Ning and so on, but until the Song and Yuan Dynasties have not yet seen the phenomenon of bats as mascots, until the Ming Dynasty appeared in the folk, until the Qing Dynasty, the official use of bat graphics continues to increase, and even become the emperor's dragon robe shading, and the Swastika pattern combined with the symbol of longevity graphics.
The so-called "carving one means longevity, two means abundance, three means Corning, four only means to repair virtue, and five only means to test the end of life."
The rulers of the Qing Dynasty pursued the concept of "the picture must be intentional, the intention must be auspicious", so that the auspicious meanings related to the bat pattern are numerous, such as "five blessings and longevity", "long life", "double complete life", "blessing in front of the eyes", "fulu shouxi", "five blessings and harmony", "blessing from heaven", "zhong kui to lead the blessing", "blessing from heaven", "nafu yingxiang"...
So why are bats with poor appearance regarded as auspicious things by the people who have always attached importance to their appearance?
There are three possible reasons:
First, it is mainly the harmonic sound between fu and bat.
The use of folk symbols for harmonics is extremely extensive, and the folk New Year painting "Nian Nian YouYu" is expressed in the harmonics of lotus flowers, children, and fish patterns.
Meng Chaoran mentioned in the "Complete Collection of Yiyuan Pavilion and The Summer Escape of the Melon Shed" that "the genus of insects is the most disgusting as bats, and now the weaving and embroidery pictures are used, which is homophonous with Yifu." ”
The similarity of sounds bridges between the two, and bats often have the habit of standing upside down branches, which is also associated with the meaning of "blessed" by the ancestors, making bats into auspicious symbols.
Qing Kangxi Blue and White Fushan Shou Hai tu flower pot
The second is that bats also had the significance of longevity in ancient times.
Picture meaning: Long life without boundaries Happiness and longevity stretch
"Baopuzi": "Chitose bats, color like snow, the set is hanging upside down, and the brain is heavy." This thing is obtained and dried up, and it is a long life. The Taiping Imperial Dictionary quotes the Water Classic: "There are stone caves under the Danshui Pavilion in Jiaozhou, and the bats in the caves are as big as birds, and they are served by people and gods."
The third is that bats are really strange-looking, black and hairy, with strange heads and strange looks, and are regarded as a magical thing.
As a mammal capable of flying, bats lie out at night, have no vision but have a good orientation, so in the eyes of the ancients, bats are an incredible mascot.
It was also in the Ming and Qing dynasties that bat patterns became an important category in furniture decoration patterns, and have been influenced by traditional Chinese culture to this day.
Bat shape on traditional furniture
In terms of modeling forms, whether it is furniture, architecture or embroidery painting, the ancients' portrayal of bats did not stay on the realistic depiction but mainly based on the bold creation of artistry.
The craftsmen never stick to the original form, through the combination of relief, through carving, circular carving and a variety of carving techniques, the entire shape of the bat pattern is shaped like a dragon like a tiger, the tiger's head and cloud ears, two wings flying obliquely, high and low staggered, the originally unbeautiful bat becomes an auspicious cloud curling wings.
When carving, the craftsmen use the Chinese character "pictogram" to summarize and omit the limbs and toes of bats, while exaggerating the bat wings (accounting for about two-thirds of the entire pattern) and head, while adding decorative patterns such as wavy patterns, cloud patterns, and flower patterns at the wings.
The bat pattern mainly appears on the brain and back panels of the chair furniture, on the teeth and tooth strips of the table, and on the door panels of the cabinet, and the forms presented are also generally presented in two kinds of shapes:
The meaning of the pattern: Fuqing has more than enough
Upside-down bat pattern
The front façade of the bat takes the vertical central axis as the baseline, and the area occupied by the left and right is almost equal, showing a symmetrical composition of the left and right, so that the overall pattern has stability, reflecting a kind of balance and stability.
If the craftsman pursues realism, the facial muscle features are obvious in the depiction of bats, the forehead and cheeks are protruding, the eye sockets are deeply sunken, the eye contours are mostly date-nucleated, the tail of the eyes is upturned upwards, and the ears are vertical pointed ears, or round short ears, which are more three-dimensional.
If placed in a closed structure such as an open light or a ring plate or a circle mouth, the bat pattern of the wings is present in a circular frame as a whole, which visually produces a kind of adduction cohesion.
This arc-shaped or circular depiction effect also reflects people's emphasis on and pursuit of "unity" and "reunion", which is consistent with the Confucian idea of "harmony", and also reflects the idea of pursuing perfection in traditional culture.
Oblique flying bat pattern
Oblique flying style bat, due to the spread of wings on the side, the entire head of the bat is semi-sideways, more figurative, the ears are vertical pointed ears and are near and far small spatial modeling features, the eyes are round and raised, staring at the side front.
The spatial perspective relationship between near and large and far is also used, and a spatial three-dimensional sense appears in the front view, while the nose shape of the bat is quite similar to the dragon nose shape.
Qingqianlong rosewood Fushou pattern armchair
And because it is not in the main body, the local bat pattern makes an upward or downward winged posture, and the wings tend to extend where they are open, just connected to the furniture as a whole.
However, no matter which kind of bat pattern, its contour depiction is mostly in the form of curves, and there is a clear opposition between it and the horizontal and vertical construction of furniture.
Within the rectangular framework composed of straight lines, the curves are progressively expressed in the form of dotted lines, which not only embodies the Confucian thought of pursuing neutrality and hierarchy, the Taoist thought of pursuing the relationship between yin and yang, and the folk culture concept of pursuing perfection and auspiciousness.
Ming-style and Qing-style bat compositions
Ming style: Take the gods
Ming-style furniture is known for its simplicity and simplicity, although the pattern is not complicated, but only with the "skeleton" to describe it is to live up to the beauty of its carving, we can borrow the Ming Dynasty literati paintings "ink like gold", "loose can walk horses" and "splash ink like clouds", "impermeable" to describe the pattern of Ming-style furniture.
Bat patterns on bright feet
Reflected in the bat pattern, although the use of the Ming Dynasty is not as common as the Qing Dynasty, but for example, in the Ming Xuande period, there have been figurative and obvious bat patterns, but by the social aesthetic tendencies at that time, in addition to the more frequent use of embroidery and porcelain, the bat figure on the furniture is not too common, and the image is more concise, and the overall composition is also more used as embellishment.
Qing style: appreciate the shape and seek the intention
The use of bat patterns in the Qing Dynasty was very extensive, but its use was more combined.
Paired with "Shou", it forms "Five Blessings and Holding Shou", "Fu Shou Shuang Quan", "Fu Shou Bandai" and other Fu Shou patterns.
Paired with "peach", it means "fu shou double complete".
With the "swastika" character and shou peach and echo pattern, there is an auspicious intention of "boundless happiness and longevity" of "blessing and longevity".
Qingqianlong Rosewood high waist six-legged belt to support mud dwarf incense a few
Paired with the auspicious cloud pattern, named cloud bat pattern, meaning "Hong Fu Qi Tian", if you add a "swastika", the combination is the meaning of "flowing clouds and ten thousand blessings".
Paired with Ruyi or Ganoderma lucidum pattern, the name is "Peace ruyi"; combined with jade chimes, representing "Fuqing"; combined with jade and copper coins, meaning "blessing in front of the eyes"; in addition, there are "four sides of Laifu", "Nafu Yingxiang", "Fu Gai Tiantian", "Fu Ru Donghai", "Blessed in the World" and other carvings, showing China's broad and profound Fu culture.
And compared with the Ming Dynasty, the Qing Dynasty's shaping of the shape has gone in two more obvious directions.
One is a more abstract derivation of bat patterns, taking only the general shape, using a flat overhead angle, and mostly using ripple patterns that repeat the gradient.
One draws on Western techniques to combine heteromorphic and isomorphic bat patterns into a whole or to display them separately.
In the late Qing Dynasty, the image of bat patterns under the influence of Western furniture sculpturalization also used more three-dimensional circular carving techniques, like the above two cases of large red branches inlaid with screws in the Broad furniture, at the upper end of the legs and feet, close to the position of the seat, decorated with bats with a high degree of three-dimensionality, which was very rare in the furniture of the previous era, and also showed the fashion at that time.
However, today's bats are regarded as a blessing or a curse by everyone?
The answer is in your hearts.