Thursday, 09. February 2006
Nature of the Beast

Dragon Kings

This leaf from an album depicts a scene from a popular legend, Taishokan, in which a female diver steals a precious crystal ball from the Dragon King. On the boat, a group of court nobles look on with concern. In the legend, the Kaishokan, the highest ranking official under Japan's Emperor, was sent a special gift from his daughter, who had married the Emperor of China. The gift, a crystal ball containing an image of the Buddha, was seized on its way to Japan by the Dragon King. Determined to win back the crystal ball, the Kaishokan sent a woman diver after it. She succeeded in recapturing the ball from the dragon, but was killed in the attempt.

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Divine Steeds

The Japanese imported more than their artistic styles from China — they also adapted Taoist and Buddhist teachings, which they blended with their native Shinto beliefs.

One Taoist figure incorporated into Japanese artwork was Kinko, a holy hermit. In Japanese art, he is often depicted mounted on the enormous carp that carried him to the Undersea Kingdom. There, sea creatures taught him that all life is sacred.

To the Japanese, the carp (koi) is a symbol of persistence, longevity, and fertility.

Land-locked farmers kept carp in ponds to provide food, and then bred them for their beautiful colors. Families fly colorful cloth carp from their homes on Children’s Day.


Shi-Shi Antics

Japanese artists love to paint supernatural, occult, and just plain eerie animals and beings. They draw on rich folk traditions as well as Shinto and Buddhist lore that includes monsters, demons, ghosts, and animals that are not what they seem.

This scene by the brilliant artist Ando Hiroshige (1797-1858) depicts two mythical animals, called shi-shi or “lion dogs.” The great beasts play on an impossibly vertical cliff, looking more like action heroes than real lions.

But then, shi-shi lions are not “real” lions. These mythical beasts repel evil spirits and usually sit sedately at the gates of Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples and are similar to the foo dogs that guard Chinese temples.

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Shi-shi lions guard temples in pairs. One usually has its mouth open to scare away demons, while the other’s mouth is closed to keep in the good spirits. These two shi-shi have broken away from their shrine and chase around a cliff, possibly suggesting the shi-shi lion dance that ushers in the New Year and celebrates other seasonal milestones. Dancers wearing fearsome lion masks snap and prance to the terror and delight of their audiences.

Nature of the Beast - An educational and interactive exploration of the way artists of Edo-period Japan depicted animals and the natural world by the Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena, California. (English)
Take the Flash-Version with Timeline, Games and the Random Monster Generator. Have fun and explore!
Category: Art & Visions | Myths & Sagas |




The Goddess in World Mythology

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Erzulie

Erzulie is the Haitian Goddess of Love whose roots go back to West Africa. She is beauty, sweetness, love and sensuality personified and is renowned for her generosity. The arts, especially dance, are her domain. Rivers, streams, lakes and waterfalls are hers and she can cure womb-related problems with her cool waters. The fan that she is holding is from Osogbo, Nigeria and belongs to a priestess of Oshun who is the mediator between the divine or natural world and the world of people, the cross in the circle indicating the meeting of the two worlds.


Wadjit

Wadjit was the Egyptian Goddess of Creation who birthed the sun each morning from the sacred papyrus marshes. Known as Buto to the Greeks, her name meant "The Green One" or "The Papyrus-Hued One", referring to her exceptional powers of growth. Wadjit was also the protective hissing cobra of the uraeus. She was depicted in both cobra and human form. In her cobra form, she was the symbol of Lower Egypt and it was said that the papyrus emerged from her. As an inhabitant of the marshes, the otter was also associated with her. The relief on the left shows Wadjit in a gesture of protection from the pyramid temple of King Neuserra, 5th Dynasty.

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To the right of that is a relief of a papyrus marsh from the Mastaba of Mereruka, Saqqara, 6th Dynasty c. 2300 BCE; behind it, on the left, is a statue of an otter from the Ptolemaic Period c. 304-30 BCE and, on the right, a copy of a previously existing mural of a papyrus marsh that was originally in the north palace of Akhenaton at Tell-el-Amarna, c. 1360 BCE. The relief on the right of Wadjit in her cobra form is from the funerary bed of Queen Hetephras, 4th Dynasty. She is wearing an earring and an armband (design adapted from a pectoral) from Tutankhamen's Tomb, c. 1323 BCE.

The Goddess in World Mythology - by Sandra M. Stanton (English)
Lovely detailed paintings of goddesses from around the world, each with a full description of the goddess.
Category: Art & Visions | Gods & Goddesses | Myths & Sagas |


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