Tag Archives: four gentlemen in Chinese art

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DSC_0889

 

Oftentimes black bamboo sets have more unusual designs than found on other tiles. This one is no exception. Given the very great challenge of carving such a hard surface as bamboo, the carver did a wonderful job. To make black bamboo mahjong tiles, the bamboo is first dyed, then carved and painted. The black background makes the colors pop.

DSC_0733 one dot

The One Dot makes it a stand-out, with its very delicately carved flower center, with other Dots the circles within circles. The bird is referred to as a darting sparrow by Michael Stanwick. The other Bams are simple rods, and the Craks the simple Wan. Artists working on these black sets handle the colors of the numbers and the suits differently, as can be seen on Stanwick's site as well. The colors here, orange, blue, red and white and the Bam shapes are different from the Black Bamboo set discussed in January. To see that set click here

Stanwick has a few sets with similar One Bams on his website:

http://themahjongtileset.co.uk/tile-set-diversity/tile-set-diversity-2-0/ 

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The Winds, Dragons and Flowers are delightful too. The White Dragon is a blank black tile, the  Green is White, and the Red is red. The Flowers on the right are plum blossom, orchid, bamboo and chrysanthemum, the four gentlemen.

To read more about the Four Gentlemen in wikipedia, click here.

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Ruyi and flowers
Ruyi and flowers

The strange shape seen in each of these Mahjong tiles is a fungus known as lingzhi. The lingzhi is known as the herb of immortality. The lingzhi resembles the head of a scepter, ruyi,  (seen here in wikipedia ). Michael Stanwick notes that the scepter was actually modeled after the fungus.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MS-SchnitzlackRuyiSzepter18Jh.JPG

The scepter, a symbol of nobility, also means "according to your wishes" thus the fungus means that too. (Patricia Bjaaland Welch, Chinese Art A guide to Motifs and Visual Imagery). Michael Stanwick adds "The fungus symbolism was transferred to the scepter and the scepter was often given to old men of renown or people of note. The idea being, I think, to confer longevity onto the recipient."

The fungus is seen with different plants, with two different plant groupings representing the four seasons:

top row: peony (spring) lotus (summer) the next tile may be grapes or a reader has suggested it may be a stylized chrysanthemum (autumn) and either a narcissus or camellia (winter)

bottom row: Plum (winter) orchid (spring) bamboo (summer) chrysanthemum (fall)

I have found while researching that some plants and flowers fall into two different seasons, but here the bottom row is the grouping of four plants, plum, orchid, bamboo and chrysanthemum known as the "four gentlemen" in Chinese art. Patricia Bjaaland Welch's book Chinese Art  A Guide to Motifs and Visual Imagery is an excellent resource for understanding symbolism on the tiles.

Here is a link to the Wikipedia article referring to the four gentlemen

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Gentlemen