Look! This 'dragon' is so cute, I seem to have seen it somewhere! In the lobby on the first floor of the People's Square Pavilion of the Shanghai Museum, Chen Chen pulled his mother to stop in front of the display cabinet of blue and white carmine red cloud dragon pattern amphora flat bottles in the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty. The dragon on this cultural relic is particularly lively, with open limbs and round eyes and mouth, as if it is jumping subject three, and has been used as an emoji by netizens.
The Lunar New Year is the Year of the Dragon, and the dragon has multiple meanings in Chinese culture, such as courage, vitality, and good luck, and carries a beautiful vision. On the occasion of bidding farewell to the old and welcoming the new, many museums in Shanghai, such as the Shanghai Museum, the China Maritime Museum, and the Shanghai History Museum, exhibited cultural relics with dragon elements, inviting the audience to start a journey of "dragon hunting".
The image of the dragon is varied and rich in Chinese culture.
Among the 12 zodiac signs, the dragon is the most special one – it has never been seen in reality, and its image is varied and rich in Chinese culture. From the ongoing "Spring Dragon Fusion - Spring Festival Exhibition in the Year of the Dragon at the Shanghai Museum", we can get a glimpse of the changes in the history of the dragon, a mysterious image of special significance to China. Among the 8 dragon cultural relics of different periods and materials on display, the oldest is the jade-shaped dragon of the late Neolithic Hongshan culture, which is 5500-5000 years old and is the representative of the early dragon image of the Chinese nation. Unlike the dragon that people are familiar with today, this jade dragon has a large dragon head, erect ears, ridges between the ears, and a protruding snout, with yin lines carved out of the eyes, mouth and nose folds. The body is curved in the shape of a jue, and there are obvious cut marks at the notch. There is a round hole in the neck that can be worn and tied. According to the modeling, the image of this dragon may be derived from pigs, bears or silkworms, etc., so it is also called "Jade Pig Dragon".
The golden dragon of the Tang Dynasty has the image of a dragon that people are familiar with today, with a long head and a single horn, huge eyes and a wide mouth, three short whiskers under the eyes and ears, sharp claws, a slender body, and clear and fine dragon scales. The modern coral dragon, carved in the form of a whole branch of coral, is the largest of the cultural relics on display, and has never been publicly displayed before. This dragon looks back and swings its tail, its mouth contains movable orbs, and the dragon's horns drag back, hanging with a burden-like Rui weapon, which is very rare.
In the newly launched "Chenlong Goes to Sea: China Maritime Museum Spring Festival Exhibition in the Year of the Dragon", the image of the dragon is also quite diverse. Here, the audience can see the dragon that "saw it on the sea in the past, and the dragon came out of the vicissitudes of the sky", and also saw the flying dragon that "rode the dragon and galloped into the sky", as well as the dragon holding the pearl of "the cold night and fog of the Xuanbao, and the dragon sleeping with the pearl in the spring". With its unique shape and auspicious meaning, the artistic charm of the dragon covers almost the entire field of Chinese arts and crafts. The various silverware, enamel and porcelain displayed in the exhibition all contain the elements of the dragon, whether vigorous and mighty, or delicate and beautiful dragon shape, which carries people's initial doubts, imagination and worship of the world, and also entrusts us with the cultural belief of compatibility, harmony and universal generosity.
A number of hidden "dragons" are waiting for the audience to discover.
Although some museums do not hold exhibitions on dragon relics, with a little attention, you can encounter "dragons" in the exhibition halls. Taking the Shanghai History Museum as an example, there are many dragon cultural relics in the permanent exhibition. One of the treasures of the town hall, "Wuhua Baizi Gift Sedan Chair", carved flowers, birds, fish and insects, fairy birds and beasts, folk legends, opera stories, there is no lack of dragons, lions, flowers and birds and many other auspicious ornaments. This sedan chair is made by Zhou Weicheng, the owner of the "Wuhua Ware Shop" in the twenties and thirties of the last century, for his only son Zhou Zongyu to marry his parents, and it can also be used as a wedding sedan chair for rent. He invited ten craftsmen from Xiangshan, Zhejiang, and the fine work was completed after ten years. This luxurious sedan chair is a model work of the integration and development of a number of traditional skills and Shanghainese culture to the peak period, vividly presenting the traditional folk plastic arts, and is also an important material evidence of life etiquette in the modern Jiangnan region.
The East Pavilion of the Shanghai Museum, which was launched not long ago, also hides a number of "dragons". For example, on the much-watched "Star China: Sanxingdui Jinsha Ancient Shu Civilization Exhibition", the bronze dragon climbing scepter of the late Shang Dynasty unearthed from the No. 1 sacrificial pit of the Sanxingdui site has a dragon on the top of the column, with a pair of sickle-shaped big ears on the dragon's head and a pair of horns on the inner side of the ears. The dragon's mouth is wide open, the two front paws lie on the top of the column, the tail hangs down and sticks to the side of the column, the hind paws firmly grasp the sides, and the tail is rolled up. From the head of this dragon, it looks like a goat, and it has a long beard, so some people think that it should be named a divine sheep; Physically, its elongated body resembles a lizard.
In the museum's first permanent exhibition hall, "Ancient Chinese Bronze Museum", the late Spring and Autumn period bird, beast and dragon pattern pot is covered with patterns, from the mouth to the abdomen, there are nine ring-shaped ribbons, and the three wide ribbons above the abdomen are the images of the dragon and the monster of the human head, the animal body and the bird tail intertwined. The vessel is exquisitely crafted and gorgeous, and the pattern is cleverly conceived, which can be called one of the representative works of the bronze casting process of the late Spring and Autumn period.
The dragon on the cultural relics is a witness to the ancestors' adaptation and transformation of nature. Chu Xiaobo, director of the Shanghai Museum, said that the evolution of the dragon image has witnessed the long history and pluralistic integration of Chinese civilization, and the national spirit represented by the dragon has also inspired generations of "descendants of the dragon" to forge ahead and strive for self-improvement.
Author: Li Ting.
Text: Li Tingtu: Ye Chenliang, Museum Editor: Xu YangResponsible Editor: Xing Xiaofang.
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