The Phoenix in Chinese Art and Mahjong Part 1

Kuan Yin • March 26, 2014

The phoenix, which only appears in times of fair and just rulers, is associated with peaceful and happy times. Patricia Bjaaland Welch's book: Chinese Art A Guide to Motifs and Visual Imagery is the source for the art information in this post. She writes the phoenix is known in China as the king of the birds, but its origins are complex. Today the phoenix is considered to be a combination of several creatures: the head of a pheasant, the body of a duck, the legs of a crane, the tail feathers of a peacock, the mouth of a parrot and the wings of a sparrow. The female phoenix has a tail with two feathers, and the male has one with five feathers. When a phoenix is paired with another mythological creature, a dragon, the phoenix automatically becomes the female partner.

Most of you are familiar with this symbol that appears on the early sets made by the Mah-Jongg Sales Company of America, that was discussed earlier on this blog. It was simply the Chinese Character for the male phoenix.

Nowadays we call it the Green Dragon, and many of today's players are unaware of this different character that served as the Green at the beginning of the Mahjong craze.

In the earliest days of Chinese art, the phoenix was shown as a striding creature with outstretched wings, up until close to 600 AD, perhaps a bit of a version of this One Bam, though of course this one does not have outstretched wings:

The jaunty attitude of this bird is enchanting.

The next Chinese Bakelite One Bam features another phoenix, posing with leg raised in a similar way to what we often see with peacock One Bams.

The two feathers reveals it to be a female. (It is from the personal collection of mahjongmahjong.)

Later on in time, during the Tang Dynasty the phoenix was depicted in flight, and by the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1126) it was shown rising in flight with legs tucked up.

On the above lovely hanging dating from the Song Dynasty in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, we see the phoenix on the left; the two feathers indicate a female. Interestingly, the tail does not have the peacock-like look to them we normally see.

A bit later in time we see the above panel dating from the Ming Dynasty in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The phoenix now looks a lot different, and its tail has the more ornate feathers we expect. Look carefully and you will see four phoenixes.

In yesterday's blog we discussed Five Bats which are symbolic of the Five Blessings: old age, wealth, health, love of virtue and a natural death, an image that frequently appears in Chinese art. The rare dish below was auctioned off at Sothebys. Five bats surround a stylized Shou in the center, and although hard to see the "cavetto," the part of the plate surrounding the center flat part, has three phoenixes. Note they only have two tail feathers, and thus are females.

Below is a version of a flying phoenix on a Mahjong tile

It is a female, and she looks it, doesn't she?

Below is the accompanying bird from the same set:

You can see the similarities to the phoenix, but it really is a pheasant, indicated by the feathers that don't resemble those of peacocks.

My book, written with Ann Israel, is coming out! To see about the book:

www.mahjonggtheartofthegame.com

to order the book:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/mah-jongg-ann-israel/1118759459?ean=9784805313237

amazon.com/gp/product/4805313234/ref=s9_newr_gw_d33_g14_i1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=0VDFGYSYF35F849MH93Q&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1688200382&pf_rd_i=507846

Five Bats: The Five Blessings

Kuan Yin • March 25, 2014

Five Bats are considered to be very lucky in Chinese art. They symbolize the five blessings: health, wealth, longevity, virtue, and dying a natural death.

The five bats theme occurs over and over in Chinese art, on some beautiful vases and porcelains, on royal robes, screens, and, of course, mahjong sets!

Here are images of some fivesomes.

This work of art was auctioned off during Asia Week in NYC at Sotheby's.

The center of the above dish is a design with three stylized lotus blooms surrounding a central lotus, encircled by five bats and scrolls.

Above is a snuff bottle recently seen at Asia Week. Notice the five bats encircling the neck of the bottle.

The dish below was also auctioned off at Sothebys. It is very rare, with five bats surrounding the stylized Shou in the center. Although hard to see on the "cavetto" (the part of the plate surrounding the center flat part) has three phoenixes.

These five bats also appear on mahjong sets. Following is a closeup of one of the drawer pulls, and a photograph of all the drawers. Are the facts that there are five drawers with five bats a coincidence? I think not! The five bats symbolize five blessings for the owner.

Above is a close-up of one bat pull, and below the five pulls on the box:

Below is a blurry photo of a simpler type of bat pull, also on five drawers.

The top of the above ebonized box has five stylized bats surrounding the top piece, what may be another bat.

And here they surround the central Shou on the front panel of the box.

This is a story of some very lucky and oblivious owners of a bat vase; although it is not about five bats, it is worth a read.

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/443251/Old-Chinese-vase-found-on-chest-of-drawers-of-oblivious-owners-sells-for-3m

Bats On Boxes 2 • 1 Comment

Kuan Yin • March 24, 2014

We thought this part was over, but one of our readers sent us two photographs of fabulous bats from the outside of boxes. We have to include them, of course, and you will see why. So we scoured the internet (mostly ebay) for more photos of bats, different yet from what we have seen to date, and they will be seen first.

The top panel has four bats in the corners. It is believed the two holding the medallion are too.

Another central medallion, this time held down by four bats.

On one writeup the vendor mentioned a stylized lucky bat handle. This box has one of them, and it looks like a bat in midflight, wings down.

This one has that kind of handle too. And you will see the brass has bats along the outside of the center medallion, maybe two or possibly four, etched into the brass. There has also been discussion as to whether the brass corners are bats too. If we go with the lack of antennae theory, they too would be bats. Ray Heaton added the following:

"This image on your blog shows the "double happiness" symbol on the box which is closely associated to wedding celebrations."

Notice the tiny little bats with their eyes etched into the brass, holding down the medallions.

This is a Chinese bat hat box. Don't you love the bats encircling the top cone?

And now for the reasons this extra bat post was added:

This fabulous bat is on a panel of a beautiful red lacquer box.

And this is the front panel, with two bats. Isn't the detail on the bodies and wings of the bats delightful? They are flying around a Shou symbol.

This little chart is taken from forumgeomancy.net

It shows a round form of shou, very similar to those on the box.

As always, if you have any photos of sets you'd like to include for this site, please send an email to

kuanyinart@gmail.com

And please sign up if you'd like to get email notifications about new posts.

Bats on Boxes • 1 Comment

Kuan Yin • March 23, 2014

In addition to their presence on tiles, bats can be found on Mahjong boxes. Sometimes bats are very easy to recognize, but often it is a bit harder because they are very stylized.

They can add ornamentation to the outside of the boxes.

This bat is fairly easy to recognize. It's on the front of a red lacquer box.

From the same red box, here is another one

Yes, it does look like a butterfly, but it seems that butterflies and bats often resemble each other in Chinese art. The lack of antennae make it more likely that it is a bat.

And bats like these are found around the top of the box:

wrapping around the edge from the top to the sides.

This bat is the drawer pull for a front panel; pulling the panel upward ( by holding the bat's body) reveals the drawers inside the box.

This ornate brass bat is on the side of a very special box.

Boxes like this are used for holding counters and dice. Here are some photos pulled from ebay:

You can see the four bats around the edge of the box

and along the sides. The bats on this box are completely endearing.

If a player was using this beautiful mother-of-pearl as a counter, she was very lucky indeed! Look up to the top and bottom middle of the counter. You will see a bat with outspread wings and striped body.

As always, if you have some photos you would like to add, please email me at

kuanyinart@gmail.com

Here is a story that is a must read; it is not about boxes, but it is about bats and a Chinese vase. It just had to be included somewhere on the site, so it is here.

Bats Part 2 • 1 Comment

Kuan Yin • March 22, 2014

Bats are well loved by the Chinese, and frequently appear in art. This exquisite porcelain, up for auction at Christies, NY, is expected to bring in over $800,000. You can see bats soaring every which way, including toward the viewer.

Here is a screen shot of the vase:

If you would like to hear an audio description of this vase, click here

In Mahjong, sometimes bats are quite easy to see, as we saw yesterday. But sometimes, as in life, the viewer needs to work a bit harder to find them.

They can be found on White Dragons.

The following are from the Mahjongmahjong collection. All of these are Chinese Bakelite, but they might be found on bakelite White Dragons too.

Look at the eyes on the top and bottom of the tile above

You can see two here pretty easily

and here too

The above tile may well be a bat.

We don't know, but these shapes at the corner of this hybrid bamboo set might be bats, or coins as Michael Stanwick speculated, or perhaps even both!

The next two bone and bamboo tiles are from Katherine Hartman's collection. This time they are on One Dots.

You can see the bats, with their pointy ears and triangular faces, at the top and bottom of the tile, spreading out their wings. They surround two peaches and a Lu symbol. According to Ray Heaton, who translated and interpreted the characters and their meanings

"This tile shows three things, the Bats, Fu, the Peach for longevity, Shou, and the Chinese character 祿, Lu, for Prosperity. So this one tile has all it needs to provide the interpretation of Fu Lu Shou.

Blessings, prosperity, and longevity"

And for another One Dot tile Ray has helped again:

"The bats (fu) surround two peaches and a fu symbol. The sound Fu means prosperity, so we have double prosperity and longevity symbols."

Please email us if you have any bats on mahjong tiles in your collection

kuanyinart@gmail.com

Bats Part 1

Kuan Yin • March 21, 2014

The Chinese consider bats to be good luck, and they are symbols of a long life and happiness. In Chinese, the word for "bat" is the same sound as the one for "good fortune." Bats were thought to live for a thousand years.

You will often see a bat on a tile, sometimes readily identifiable and sometimes so stylized it is hard to see. Today we will see a few easily recognizable ones. Many have ears and even whiskers, making them quite endearing.

The tile above from a Shanghai Luck Set has two bats, one on each side of the Wan. Paired with the peaches on the top and bottom of the tile, the tile augers well for longevity.

This bat is a bit more stylized, though recognizable. Note the rounded shapes to the left in front of the bat, and to the right behind it, symbolizing clouds.

The bat on the above tile is one of four flying creature tile Flowers in a set; the other three are birds.

Above is a similar one from Katherine Hartman's collection. You will notice that each bat is cropped by the tree. The tree, a pine, is another symbol for longevity.

Bats appear in many forms of Chinese art, and they were deemed important from very early days. Here are some captured on robes made for royalty.

This robe, auctioned off at Sothebys during Asia Week 2014, is an Imperial robe from the 19th Century. You can see a bat flying toward the upper left.

The beautiful robe below was shown by Alan Kennedy in his Asia Week Exhibition : Qing Dynasty Women Concubines & Meiren.

The bat is flying just above the dragon.

There are some other fabulous robes in the Metropolitan Museum collection.

The garment above uses peacock feathers twisted into silk thread for the embroidery, a technique dating from the fifth Century. The bat is just over the dragon's head.

A better view of the greens:

Bats remain important to Chinese culture. Here's a different kind of robe done by the artist Wang Jin in Dreams of China. The pvc robe is embroidered with fishing line to create the patterns.

Don't forget the bats!

Please email us if you have any recognizable bats in your mahjong collection.

kuanyinart@gmail.com

Links Between Flower Tiles and Chinese Art Part 4

Kuan Yin • March 20, 2014

In Chinese art there is no requirement that an object be seen in its entirety, and this idea has existed for hundreds of years. In landscapes, water scenes with boats, mountains and rock outcroppings with trees often appear, sometimes in simplified form.

These two tiles are from a Chinese Bakelite set. You can see the boat continues from one tile to the next, but still not seen in its entirety. Notice how a tree trunk is captured on the right tile.

This special ink and color scroll was painted by Zhang Daqian (Chang Dai-chien) who lived from 1899 until 1963. It is entitled The Bridge to Eternity. You can see a lone fisherman in his boat at the water's edge, with the boat somewhat hidden behind a small projection of the landscape. But objects don't have to be hidden to be simplified:

(This tile is not half of a two tile set)

There is no need to show the whole object if people can figure out what it is.

Looking at these tiles again you can note how here too boats are somewhat hidden by land outcropping, with trees along the rocky shoreline and mountains. You will see a partial bridge on the lower left tile, a structure also seen on the Zhang Daqian scroll above.

Links Between Flower Tiles and Chinese Art Part 3

Kuan Yin • March 19, 2014

From the Metropolitan Museum website:

"Images of nature have remained a potent source of inspiration for artists down to the present day. While the Chinese landscape has been transformed by millennia of human occupation, Chinese artistic expression has also been deeply imprinted with images of the natural world. Viewing Chinese landscape paintings, it is clear that Chinese depictions of nature are seldom mere representations of the external world. Rather, they are expressions of the mind and heart of the individual artists—cultivated landscapes that embody the culture and cultivation of their masters."

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/clpg/hd_clpg.htm

The artist who carved these bone and ebony tiles created designs similar to those done by other Chinese artists who worked in other media such as watercolors and ink drawing. Objects were captured with a few strokes giving the viewer all necessary clues to know what was depicted.

Here are two works from the Metropolitan Museum of Art:

The artist has captured the essence of the scene, with a fisherman in a boat halfway up on the left, and two bridges, one in the forefront and one in the center.

This beautiful work features sailboats in the distance. The boats in each help to fill the void created by the water, fitting in with Chinese design principles.

This from the Metropolitan Museum website describing these works:

"In 1691 Wang Hui, the leading artist of his day, was summoned to Beijing to oversee the creation of a mammoth imperial commission documenting the Kangxi emperor's southern inspection tour of 1689. The painting, consisting of twelve monumental handscrolls, is the largest pictorial work of the Qing dynasty. (The Metropolitan owns one scroll from this set; acc. no. 1979.5.) Since the finished set bears no artists' signatures or seals, it is only through group works such as the Museum's new acquisition that the identity of Wang's artistic team can be established. The album, in which four younger artists from Wang's home region practiced the methods of ancient artists, is a rare example of a master painter's having recruited assistants and shaped their style to conform to the orthodox manner, which epitomized scholarly taste at that time. This academic style became the hallmark of all later Qing court commissions.

The leaf illustrated here, Mountain Waterfall, is by Wang Hui's leading disciple, Yang Jin, who has inscribed it with a poem:

For ten days spring clouds have obscured the stream's source;
In the middle of the night a west wind brings rain to the [mountain's] foot.
But I feel the urgent thunder roar in the empty valley,
So from a distance I know that the myriad gorges are competing in their flows."

Anyone else notice the artist wrote a poem on the painting? It is just like the carvers who added poems and sayings on many of our Mahjong tiles!

This paraphrase from the Ink Dance Chinese Paintings's website helps to explain the reliance on boats in waterscape scenes:

When painting a landscape scene featuring water, a mountain is the face, buildings on ridges are the eyes and a fisherman in a boat is the soul. Water becomes charming when it embellishes a mountain; it becomes clear when it has buildings near it; it shows greater perspective when there are boats.

Following are examples of some boats on Mahjong tiles.

You can see different boats on these tiles, a sailboat and some small fishing boats.

A sailboat from The Pung Chow Company

And a small Chinese Bakelite boat

Links Between Flower Tiles and Chinese Art Part 2

Kuan Yin • March 18, 2014

This beautiful screen is on view at Sothebys, for Asia Week. It dates from the late 18th to early 19th Century. Here is a somewhat blurry detail.

You can see a similar kind of boat on these Flower tiles:

Note also the trees along the shoreline on the screen and the tiles. On the screen detail you also see some diaper patterns just above the boat. We see those patterns on boxes, just like the one below, used as trim around the window.

The scene above may be from Romance of the Three Kingdoms. You can see people on the top of the city wall, just as we see on some of the Empty City Tiles:

and below from the mahjongmahjong collection

You will see some other elements often carved into Flower tiles on this beautiful scroll, painted by Lan Ying who lived from 1585 until 1666.

The bridge, the boat, the trees and rocks along the shoreline, all were important to Mahjong craftsmen who had a thorough knowledge of Chinese art.

Links between Flower Tiles and Chinese Art part 1

Kuan Yin • March 17, 2014

There are two main reasons this website was begun: we hope readers will develop an appreciation for the incredible skill of the men who carved and painted the designs we love so well, and wish the word would spread that these sets are truly special pieces of art. The carvers who made these sets had a great grasp of Chinese art, and used many of the inspirations around them while designing these tiny tiles.

Asia Art Week is going on in New York City this week. Collectors and dealers come from all over the world. There are fabulous pieces of art, ranging from very early pieces that are thousands of years old to Contemporary works. So far, no mahjong sets have put on display, but we're working to change that! You can see some of the pieces of art online on the Asia Week website.

These tiles have been on the website before. They are from the Bone and Ebony set on Michael Stanwick's website. Here are two photos taken of traditional Chinese landscapes that were on view at Sotheby's NY over the weekend. You will quickly see the inspiration behind these tiny landscapes. The artist was able to capture a very restful scene on each one. The Chinese translates to wishes for longevity extending life.

This painting was done by Dong Bangda who lived from 1699 until 1769. It is entitled: Fishing Boat on River. You can see a person in a boat, on the left about a third of the way up from the bottom, trees along the water's edge, rocks and mountains, quite like we see on the Flowers. You can also see a small pavilion on a rock, just above the boat. A pavilion is also found on two of the Flower tiles.

This is a more recent work by Huang Binhong who lived from 1864 until 1955. The work is entitled landscape, but has much in common with the older one above and the Flower tiles. Once again we see a small boat on the water, rocks, mountains and trees.

On both paintings we see Chinese characters, not unlike the Chinese writing that accompanies the numbers on the Flower tiles.

Mahjong Treasures

Appreciating the Art of Mahjong; A Collector's Guide

The Phoenix in Chinese Art and Mahjong Part 1

Five Bats: The Five Blessings

Bats On Boxes 2 • 1 Comment

Bats on Boxes • 1 Comment

Bats Part 2 • 1 Comment

Bats Part 1

Links Between Flower Tiles and Chinese Art Part 4

Links Between Flower Tiles and Chinese Art Part 3

Links Between Flower Tiles and Chinese Art Part 2

Links between Flower Tiles and Chinese Art part 1