Zhuang Shen

Zhuang Shen （1932-2000）， pen-named Shenqing， is native to Beijing. He was an internationally renowned expert in Chinese art history. His father was the former deputy dean of the Palace Museum in Taiwan. When he was a teenager， he and his father’s generation witnessed the “southward relocation” of the cultural relics of the former Palace Museum in Beijing. In his youth， he first studied in the Department of History and Geography at Taiwan Normal University. Then he majored in the history of Chinese art and earned a master’s degree from Princeton University in the United States. He taught at the University of Hong Kong for 22 years in his middle age and was the founder of the art department of the university. Later， he returned to Taiwan and served as a researcher at the Institute of History and Linguistics and a professor at Taiwan Normal University. He was the author of The Study of the History of Chinese Painting， A Sequel to Study of the History of Chinese Painting， Study of Wang Wei （Vol. 1）， Collection of Poems of Four Major Painters in Late Yuan Dynasty， Fan and Chinese Culture， From White Paper to Silver： Collection of History of Modern Guangdong Calligraphy and Painting， Chang’an Era： Life History of the Tang Dynasty， and other works.

This book is an introduction to Chinese art for ordinary readers. It contains all the best Chinese art works from the pre-Qin Dynasty to the 20th century. Its content covers calligraphy， painting， engraving， sculpturing， artifacts， clothing， books， architecture， and so on.

Original Beauty：

3，000 Years of Chinese Art

Zhuang Shen

CITIC Press Group

June 2018

168.00 （CNY）

Zhuangzi’s Concept of Immortals

Apart from the advocating of alchemists from the Kingdom of Yan， the formation of the concept of immortals in the early period seems to be quite influenced by what Zhuangzi called the “true person”. According to what Zhuangzi said in his article Great Master， ordinary persons breathe with their throats while true persons breathe with the heels of their feet. A mural produced in the border region of China near North Korea depicts an immortal tooting a horn while flying in the sky. Immortals are barefoot. Why do they go barefoot？ Isn’t that what Zhuangzi called immortals breathing with their heels？ Since true persons are different from ordinary persons in breathing， they have all kinds of abilities that ordinary people do not have. For example， true persons do not get wet while going through the water and do not feel hot while going through the fire.

Of course， their bodies will not be scorched by the fire either. A man named Lie Yukou can not only soar into the air but also be able to fly with the wind. Moreover， the immortals who live in the Miaoguye have skin as white as ice and snow and a look as gentle as an unmarried girl. The diet of these divine people is very different from that of ordinary people. They suck the wind and drink dew. If they want to go out， they will either fly with the clouds or ride flying dragons. The true persons mentioned by Zhuangzi are very similar to the immortals imagined by later generations.

Although the date of his death has not yet been determined， Zhuangzi was born in about 369 BCE. If he died after the age of 40， the date might have been around 329 BCE when Zhuangzi was in his middle age. In terms of time， the middle age of Zhuangzi should be roughly during the same period when King Wei of Qi， King Xuan of Qi， and King Zhao of Yan taking the advice of alchemists actively sent people to the sea to search for Sanshen Mountain in the sea.

According to those materials， we know that the concept of immortals was developed in early 4th century BCE. The place where this concept first came into being was in the Kingdom of Yan， which is now Hebei Province of China. This concept was later spread from the Kingdom of Yan to the Kingdom of Qi， which is now Shandong Province. Geographically， Hebei and Shandong are both near the shore of the East China Sea. The concept of immortals came into being in the seaside region because the vast sea easily attracts people’s reverie， leading them to develop romantic ideas.

Ding Lingwei flies by riding a crane

Since the second half of the 4th century， many residents from Shandong crossed the Bohai Sea and went to the Liaodong Peninsula in the form of immigrants. They first settled in the south of today’s Liaoning Province. However， when the 5th century came， the residents in the south of the Liaodong Peninsula had expanded northward and gradually reached the north of today’s Liaoning Province. Most of the residents who emigrated from Shandong were Taoists. When the descendants of these immigrants moved northward to the north of the Liaoning Province， the Taoist concept of immortals was introduced to the interior of northeast China from the coastal areas.

In 1975， archaeologists discovered a Han tomb in Henan. One of the many cultural relics unearthed from the tomb is a kneeling figure made of bronze. This bronze statue not only has a pair of wings but also has feathers on its legs. This kind of person is probably the “feather man” described in the poems of the Han Dynasty. Feather men have a pair of wings， so they can surely fly freely in the air like birds. Apart from wings and feathers， the most noteworthy thing about the feather men is their bare feet. As mentioned earlier， the concept of being barefoot may come from Zhuangzi. But Zhuangzi did not say that the barefoot immortals have wings and feathers. In this way， the feather men created by the bronze sculptors in the Han Dynasty seem to have two sources： One is Zhuangzi from which the sculptors created barefoot feather men， and the other is their new idea by which they created the feather man with wings and feathers.

If we observe the history of the development of Chinese literature in the middle ancient period， we can see that from the 4th century， poets in the Northern and Southern dynasties were infatuated with the poems of “traveling immortals” and “immortals”. Regardless of the length and quality of the poems， all the poems labeled as “traveling immortals” or “immortals” were all yearning for the free world of immortals. It seems that Zhang Hua （232-300） of the Jin Dynasty was the first poet to write the poems of traveling immortals. Later， in the Southern Dynasties， Cheng Gongsui， He Shao， Zhang Xie， Guo Pu， Yu Chan， Zhan Fangsheng， and Dai Tiangao all wrote such poems. In the Northern Dynasties， Yan Zhitui and Yu Xin also wrote similar poems.

The prevalence of “traveling immortal poems” revealed ordinary people’s yearning for freedom and peace in a society of war and turmoil. The romantic “traveling immortal poems” thus came into being in literature. In addition to “traveling immortal poems “， people’s love for immortals in the Southern and Northern dynasties can also be seen in a Taoist mural called “Riding a Crane”. In the 5th century， today’s North Korea was called Goguryeo and was an independent country. The Goguryeo Kingdom was bordered by Jilin Province of today’s China which is the neighboring province of Liaoning. Ji’an was a small town in Jilin near the border of Goguryeo. This mural is a Taoist mural from the 5th century that was found in an ancient tomb in Ji’an.

According to Sou Shen Hou Ji （a novel featuring ghost stories composed in the Eastern Jin Dynasty）， there was a Liaodong native named Ding Lingwei who had been learning the Tao outside. One day， he turned into a crane and flew back to Liaodong. Before he got home， he had a rest on a big stone pillar in front of the city gate. Suddenly， a young man shot him with an arrow. Although the arrow missed him， Ding Lingwei would never go home again. According to this book， there was a story in Liaodong that Ding Lingwei turned into a crane. Moreover， the location of the mural was also in Liaodong. So， the man who rides a crane in the mural may be Ding Lingwei. If the muralist painted a crane instead of Ding Lingwei riding on the back of a crane， he might not have been able to easily express the Taoist thought that Ding Lingwei could turn into something freely because of learning the Tao.

On the other hand， if the muralist painted a short arrow in the mural， the shape of the arrow was easily confused with the lines representing clouds. However， when he painted a spear instead of a short arrow that was held by Ding Lingwei， the plot in which he was attacked and flew away could be revealed vividly. According to the mural in Ji’an， we can see that up to the 5th century， the Liaodong Peninsula was still dominated by Taoism. Buddhism from the Western regions did not seem to have been introduced to Liaodong at this time.