A Study On The Image Of Chinese "Long"

In the artistic designing history of Chinese traditional images, the "Long" image has developed in a variety of shapes ever since the New Stone Age. "Long" is not only a creation subject for painting and scriptures on buildings, but an important image in traditional industrial arts and artistic design.Various shapes of "Long" with a history of thousands of years have been manifested in the diversification of artistic design developed with the change of time. As an ideological image in ancient times, the creation of "Long" was undoubtedly bound by the natural surroundings, the socio-economic situation, the living of people and the religions and customs inherited from primitive ancestors. All these varieties of dragon image with their particularities, ingenuity and grandness expressed in various shapes and colours not only bestow the Chinese people with grandness and particularity, but also fill people with great mystery and desire to investigate, which is exactly the spectacular artistic charm and the strong artistic effect created by the Chinese "Long".Attempts are made in this paper to comb the developing history of the "Long" image, analyses and interpret the particularities and generalities of the shapes, decorations, and images of "Long" in different stages so as to construct a system of the Chinese "Long". Artistic works of "Long" in typical types of arts in history are selected, classic documents and analysis are used, and the methodologies of history, picture theory, and philology are adopted.The "Long" image is expressed in different conformation in different times, with gaucherie and abstractness in the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, elegance and vigor in the Spring and Autumn Periods and the Warring States, boldness and forcefulness in the Qin and Han Dynasties, freedom and strength in the Six Kingdoms, Sui and Tang Dynasties, gracefulness and subtlety in the Song and Yuan Dynasties, and complexity and gaudiness in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. The summarization of "Long" image features ever since the Han and Tang Dynasties as "one Long with nine likeness", "one Long with three pauses", and "one stroke with three twists" demonstrates the Chinese ancestors' capability in selecting parts of different animals and reorganizing them into an artistic whole of "Long" image with not only an integration of concreteness and abstractness, but also of form and spirit, which agrees more logically with Chinese ideology of aesthetic value, artistic conception, and sentiment as well.Although opinions vary in the origination of "Long", the "Long" image has become a cultural symbol distinguishing the Chinese people from others, representing a common ideology of the Chinese people. Through a thorough analysis of the "Long" image from various perspectives and interpretations, the author tries to clarify the typical features and innermost essence the "Long" image, summarize the history of its design, investigate into the formation, evolution and designing ideas of "Long" in different ages, reveal the ideological meanings expressed or hinted, and the symbolic meaning of each design of "Long" image, so as to throw light on the national aesthetic ideology and cultural disposition deposited and expanded in the evolution of the "Long" image.