From the earliest times Chinese art has been a vehicle for the expression of all kinds of values, beliefs and ideas in representational or symbolic form. Symbols of wealth, long life, fertility and happiness abound in the Chinese repertoire of ornament, most especially porcelain. Among the more popular are bats, which symbolise happiness; the fungus, a symbol of long life; the pomegranate, fertility; the ruyi sceptre, prosperity (ruyi, also meaning 'as you wish' embodies the Chinese love of word play); the lotus, beauty; the peach; longevity and the 'Three Friends' - prunus, pine and bamboo - of longevity and winter, and also symbolic of the qualities of a gentleman. Many popular beliefs and traditions were founded in Buddhism and in the native religion of Daoism. Images of Daoism's reputed founder Laozi, the mythical god of immortality Shou Lao (usually depicted as an elderly sage with long eyebrows and accompanied by a deer) and of the Eight Daoist Immortals are among the most familiar images in the arts of China. The two most popular Buddhist images were the bodhisattva Guanyin and the distinctive manifestation of the Future Buddha Maitreya as Budai, often known as the 'Laughing Buddha'.
China's most emphatic and familiar emblem is the dragon. In the West this mythical creature carries an ambivalent message as a harbinger of evil, a 'monster of the ground' but in China the dragon is a benevolent rain-bearing beast and the ultimate symbol of the emperor and imperial power and authority. The phoenix (feng-huang), believed to appear only in times of peace and prosperity, is a symbol of the empress and of beauty. The fundamental human quest for immortality gave rise in China to an encyclopaedia of symbols of longevity, many of which became persistent motifs in Chinese arts. Variant forms of the character for longevity, shou  appear in all the arts. Other popular emblems of longevity are the crane, the pine tree and the peach.
|
