One of the most commonly used motifs that depicts household fowls. It has also been frequently used in pun rebuses with intended meaning of ‘good fortune’ or ‘good wishes’, as its Chinese pronunciation is ‘ji 鸡’, punning on ‘ji 吉’ …
Quail is a middle-sized bird, and is nowadays farm-raised for table food and their eggs. However, they play an interesting role in traditional Chinese art with an auspicious meaning. Quail’s Chinese name is ‘an chun’(鹌鹑). Its first character 鹌 (‘an’) …
The feng phoenix, or feng huang 凤凰, which is often portrayed to resemble a peacock or golden pheasant, is the second of China’s Four Sacred Creatures (the others being the long dragon 龙, the qilin 麒麟 and the tortoise). Except …
The zhi pheasant 雉, also called Huachong 华虫 in ancient China, is one of the most popular birds depicted in traditional Chinese art. Due to its characteristic multicoloured long-tail, the pheasant is associated with the wide-ranging literary talents of the …
According to the oldest dictionary in China, Shuowen jiezi 说文解字 (Explanations of Simple Graphs and Analyses of Composite Graphs), the earliest version of the character for ‘crane’ is a composite graph consisting of a pictograph for a bird, the present-day …
Image of the Five Principal Human Relations (Wu Lun Tu 五伦图), also known as Lun Xu Tu 伦叙图 (Epitome of Hierarchical Social Order), symbolises the five basic relationships in traditional Chinese society. This design typically consists of five kinds of …
Phoenix has been deemed as a holy, noble and beautiful bird in the Chinese folk myths and was regarded as the king of all birds. In Volume 915 of the comprehensive reference book ‘Readings of the Taiping Era’ (太平御览 Tai …