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Have you ever wondered why the image of the prunus has been a popular motif in Chinese decorative art? Why do Chinese literati love to write poems about plum blossoms and paint them in their art works? Dr Yibin Ni will explain to you the symbolic ...
In Chinese culture, the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival is related to the legendary fairy Chang E, the Moon Goddess. We often see a hare, her loyal companion, and an osmanthus tree in the picture with her against a background of the Moon Palace. However,...
More often than not, traditional Chinese motifs or symbols are not receiving their deserved attention, being given simplistic or inadequate labels and inaccurate explanations in our museums, catalogues, or even scholarly writing. The treatment of ...
Congratulations on art historian Dr Yibin Ni’s new research into a rare story scene in Chinese pictorial art, which may have puzzled contemporary museum curators and porcelain collectors. Dr Ni has traced the art historical context in which this r...
A literati theme with the image of a scholar riding in a snowscape with branches of plum blossoms in the vicinity has been very popular in traditional Chinese visual culture and literature. But who is the scholar in the scene? Art historian Dr Yib...
Pictorial artworks with figural scenes in traditional China often have historical and cultural significance and are not to be mistaken for daily life genre painting. Here is an example and Dr Yibin Ni will explain to you the hidden meaning in the ...
The Peony Pavilion is a famous play written by Tang Xianzu in Ming Dynasty. There are very few figural paintings depicting this play on Kangxi famille verte porcelain. Dr Yibin Ni first identified the figures and the scene on a porcelain dish in t...
The following article is a discussion of the substitution of a mythical beast for a horse as Grand Duke Jiang’s mount on three classic porcelain vases adorned with the same story scene of ‘Bo Yi and Shu Qi Trying to Stop the Mighty Zhou Army’. It ...
Through analysing a famous theme that depicts Bo Yi and Shu Qi Stopping the Zhou Army, Dr Yibin Ni has compared a number of porcelain vessels from Ming and Qing dynasties, and demonstrated his unique insight which can facilitate the correct dating...
This is a republication of Dr Yibin Ni’s article written in Chinese “明末清初瓷器上张生的‘凝视’和莺莺的挑战”(Gaze from Scholar Zhang and the response from Lady Cui Yingying: a discussion of figural depiction on porcelains from Late Ming to Early Qing dynasty)...
Have you ever wondered why images of an old scholarly man riding a buffalo are often depicted on Chinese antiques? What is so special about this man who looks highly respected and followed by yet still sitting on a buffalo’s back? We hereby invite...
Do you wonder why two warriors are waving swords over a rock that looks like a cross bun? Let Dr Yibin Ni demystify this enigmatic scene for you, which illustrates the old Chinese saying ‘bedfellows dream different dreams’!
Story scenes painted on Chinese porcelains are sometimes mysterious and challenging to understand. Dr Yibin Ni, whose specialised research is to demystify figures and story scenes, and decode motifs, symbols and pun rebuses in Chinese art, is here...
Have you wondered why the same story scenes were painted differently on Chinese artworks? How was it painted to present women falling in love on Chinese antique porcelains? Read on to see what Dr Yibin Ni has to say with his analysis.
Do you wonder why there is a goat drawing a carriage, rather than a horse, on traditional Chinese art pictures? Why are there so many people watching someone in a chariot? What is the story behind it? Here is what Dr Yibin Ni has to tell you.
Zhang Liang (张良, d. 189 BCE) was an ambitious young man and was looking for opportunities to overturn the emperor at that time. He ran into a guru strategist Lord Yellowstone (黄石公 Huang Shigong) by the Yi Bridge 圯桥, where Lord Yellowstone tested Zhang three times for his humility and perseverance before taking h...
This is Scene One of Act Two of the Chinese classic popular drama Romance of the Western Chamber (西厢记 Xixiang Ji), written by the Yuan playwright Wang Shifu (125...
The Chinese classic drama Romance of the Western Chamber (西厢记) depicts a romantic story of a young couple in the Tang dynasty. The name of the play has also been translated into The Story of the Western Wing, The West Chamber, and Romance of the Western Bower, etc. It stands as one of ...
This is Scene Two of Act Two of the Chinese classic popular drama Romance of the Western Chamber (西厢记 Xixiang Ji), written by the Yuan playwright Wang Shifu (1250–1336).
Sun Feihu 孙飞虎, a local bandit, was attracted to Miss Cui Yingying (崔莺莺)’s beauty and wanted to abduct her from the Buddhist monastery wh...
Qin Shubao (秦叔宝, or Qin Qiong 秦琼, ?–638,) and Luo Cheng 罗成 were cousins, and they were characters in the Qing Dynasty novel Complete Biography of Explaining the Tang Dynasty 《说唐演义全传》 (Shuo Tang Yanyi Quan Zhuan, author unknown).
Luo Cheng was invited by General Yang Yichen 杨义臣 to guard an extremely diffic...
Water Margin, also known as Outlaws of the Marsh or All Men Are Brothers, is a classic Chinese novel written during the Ming Dynasty. It is considered one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature.
The authorship of the Water Margin has always been a subject of de...
This is Scene Two of Act One of the Chinese classic popular drama Romance of the Western Chamber (西厢记 Xixiang Ji), written by the Yuan playwright Wang Shifu (1250–1336).
After Zhang Gong 张珙 (styled Junrui 君瑞) glimpsed Cui Yingying 崔莺莺 outside the Buddha Hall in the Monastery of Universal Salvation, he wen...
This scene is from one of the most famous Chinese dramatic works, Romance of the Western Chamber 西厢记, which was written by the Yuan playwright Wang Shifu (王实甫 1260–1336). The play tells the story of a secret love affair between Zhang Gong (张珙, also called Scholar Zhang 张生) and Cui Yingying 崔莺莺, the daughter of f...
This is Scene Four of Act Two of the Chinese classic popular drama Romance of the Western Chamber (西厢记 Xixiang Ji), written by the Yuan playwright Wang Shifu (12...
Guo Ziyi (郭子仪 697–781), a native of Huazhou 华州 (a county near present-day Xi’an 西安), was the most prominent general-statesman of the Tang dynasty. For the great part of nearly thirty years and under a succession of four different emperors, he played a key role in maintaining the stability of the country. He helped to
Dong Zhuo (董卓 d. 192), a tyrannic warlord rising to power at the end of the Han dynasty, caused great concern among courtiers and officials. Wang Yun (王允), the Minister Over the Masses (司徒 Situ), was entrusted to figure out a plan to bring him down. Dong Zhuo was particularly powerful because he managed to ally ...
‘Li Mi (李密 582–619) Hanging His Books on His Ox Horns’ is one of the inspirational self-improvement stories in ancient China. It was adopted in the famous Three-Character Classic (三字经 San Zi Jing), written in the 13th century. The primer served as children’s first textbook in elementary...
There are thirty-six well-known stratagems (三十六计) that the Chinese politicians, strategists, and businessmen have been using for millennia. One of them is the ‘ruse of inflicting pain on oneself or one’s comrades to gain the enemy’s trust’. The scene depicted here is its most famous illustration.
Zhou Yu (周瑜) was ...
Young scholar Zhang Junrui (张君瑞, also called Zhang Sheng 张生) is the male protagonist in the famous ancient Chinese play, Romance of the Western Chamber (西厢记 Xixiang j...
In this scene, there are several Chinese longevity symbols such as the
This is a story of a brave woman who boldly exercised her rhetorical competence, managed to correct the erring ruler and saved her husband from execution. The story of The Wife of the Bow Maker in the State of Jin (晋弓工妻) is recorded in Chapter 6 Convincing and Perceptive (辩通传), Biographies of Exemplary Women (列女...
Meng Haoran (孟浩然, c. 690–740) is one of the most renowned poets in Tang dynasty (618–906). He started off pursuing a civil service career and then abandoned it to concentrate on poetry. He was a major influence on other Tang and later poets because of his innovative focus on nature. There is a play attributed to the note...
‘Tiao Mei He Geng 调梅和羹’ is a metaphor that likens the art of governing a country to the adequate seasoning of a stew with salt and sour prunes. The scene is often made up of a group of women or men surrounding a stove, on which a cauldron of food is being cooked, with an assistant holding a container with sour p...
‘True love conquers all’ is the theme of the Peony Pavilion (牡丹亭 Mudan Ting), a musical play of fifty-five scenes written by Tang Xianzu (汤显祖, 1550–1616) in Ming...
Evidently, Zhao Kuangyin (赵匡胤 927–976), Emperor Taizu of the Song dynasty (宋太祖), often paid unofficial surprise visits to his courtiers. As a result, his ministers did not dare to change their official attire into casual wear even when they returned home from court. They had to be ready for imperial visits any time and d...
The main figure in the scene is a dignitary, often gripping a hu (笏) tablet in his hands, which an official uses to take notes when he has audience with the emperor in court. He is usually sheltered by page boys erecting some fans or a parasol or guarded by a soldier holding a weapon with an iron melon on the to...
When Prefect Mao Bao 毛宝 was stationed in the city of Wuchang 武昌, Hebei province, during the Jin dynasty (晋 265-420), there was a story about a white tortoise who repay...
This scene is an episode from the Ming drama ‘The Story of the Girl Holding ...
The Ming-dynasty play The Story of the Blue Robe (青袍记 Qingpao ji, also called《梁氏父子传胪记》) tells the story of how Lv Dongbin (吕洞宾 Lü Dongbin or 吕纯阳),...
Li Yuan 李渊 (566-635 CE) excelled at horse-riding, archery, and calligraphy as a young man. He was to be the future founder (reigned 618-626 CE) of the Tang dynasty (618-907 CE). Miss Dou was exceptionally smart and her father Dou Yi 窦毅, the governor of Dingzhou, was very particular about the quality of his future son-in-...
Bo Yi (or Boyi, 伯夷) and Shu Qi (or Shuqi, 叔齐) were sons of the ruler of Guzhu (孤竹), a vassal state of the Shang dynasty (商朝, 16th-11th cent. BCE). As the king was getting old, he wanted Shu Qi, his youngest son, to inherit his throne. However, when the father died, Shu Qi asked Bo Yi to take over th...
Emperor Yang of the Sui dynasty (隋炀帝, r. 606-18) is known for many achievements, such as linking the Yellow and Yangzi Rivers with the man-made Grand Canal, leading successful military campaigns expanding the Sui territory, and being accomplished in the arts. Despite those, Emperor Yang is also considered to have brought...
Ancient literature shows that Laozi (老子, also known as Lao Tzu) served as the Keeper of the Imperial Archives of the Eastern Zhou court (东周, 770-258 BCE). He must have greatly benefited from the perk of the job – the easy access to the best stock of classics written on bamboo slips at the time and became s...
Laozi (Lao Tzu 老子) is a great ancient Chinese thinker, to whom a five-thousand-character book ‘Dao de jing 道德经’, or The Scripture of the Way and Virtue, has been attributed. He is regarded as the founder of philosophical Daoism (Taoism), daojia 道家, because of his profound insights to life and t...
When the old duke of Jin (晋) passed away, his heir was still in the cradle. It was with the powerful minister Zhao Dun (赵盾)’s support that he succeeded in ascending the throne. Unfortunately, the young duke, who was posthumously given the title Duke Ling of Jin, Jìn Líng Gōng (晋灵公, ? – 607 BCE), became increasingly the o...
The young duke of the State of Jin (晋) who was posthumously given the title Duke Ling of Jin, Jìn Líng Gōng (晋灵公, ? – 607 BCE), has been known as a ‘ruler who does not deserve his title (bu jun 不君)’. His despotic behaviour was enumerated in the records by historiographers. For example, he levied heavy taxes to b...
This is a story of a righteous woman. As the army of the state of Qi (齐国) launched an invasion against the state of Lu (鲁国), soldiers approaching a Lu suburb saw a woman struggling along the road with two children. When the army got closer, she abandoned one of the children and grabbed the other, moving toward the mounta...
In the 14th-century historical novel, Romance of the Three Kingdoms (三国演义 – 甘露寺招亲), the generals in the Dongwu (东吴) kingdom conspired to murder Liu Bei (刘备), head of the Shu Han (蜀汉) kingdom, by inviting him to their territory with the promise of their king Sun Quan (孙权)’s sister for his wife. When Liu Bei...
The osmanthus tree prominent in the Moon Palace came to be a symbol for elite talents in the Jin dynasty 晋朝 (265-420). In around Tang dynasty (618-907), ‘plucking a s...
With strategic plans to restore the war-torn country back to order, the talented scholar Li Jing (李靖) was paying a visit to the powerful Lord Yang Su (杨素), who enjoyed luxurious ways of living and female company around him. To Li Jing’s disappointment, Lord Yang did not take his plans seriously. However, Red Fly Whisk (红...
Wei Jie (卫玠, 286-312) was admired as a handsome “jade man’ when he appeared in his signature goat-drawn carriage in town. Wei Jie shone like a piece of gleaming diamond whichever company he was in.
On 17th century porcelain, the goat-drawn carriage and the Continue Reading
The second half of the third century and the beginning of the fourth century saw a couple of most handsome men in the history of China. For example, Pan An 潘安 (247–300) was exceptionally cute and adorable when he was an adolescent. Women who spotted him in the street would circle around him and throw fruits into his char...