A Brief Look At Oriental Tiger Art

March 15, 2012
by Steve Chung

The tiger has been a potent symbol in Chinese art by way of out the history of the nation. The animal is one of the twelve characters of the zodiac calendar. As such the tiger is considered to have an authoritative personality that is considered to be the ruler of all the beasts in the sky.

Individuals born in the year of the tiger are believed to have the different attributes associated with the tiger. Apart from being authoritative they are considered to be courageous yet stubborn and also possess a humanitarian spirit and are extremely loving towards their friends. Such folks are identified be natural born leaders and have a long life expectancy.

We uncover the tiger to be a popular theme depicted via several mediums of art. They way in which the tiger is depicted inside the different art forms gives different meanings to each portrayal.

The tiger is considered to be a Yang animal, which means that it is mostly associated to males. Due to this, its traits include courage, bravery and sternness, and also the animal is also referred to as the mountain king.

The locals would hang Chinese paintings featuring the tiger on the walls of their homes with all the tiger facing the entrance. They would do this with the belief that the image of the tiger carried the potential to drive away demons and protect the house from any sort of evil. The tiger is believed to have a special Ch\’i energy which will be the reason why FengShui practitioners produced use of tiger paintings in this manner.

In Ancient China, the belief about the tiger went back to their legends of old and the animal was considered as an animal god. Actually, the tiger was also known to be the main guardian spirit when it came to agriculture and farmers would even use distinct tiger art pieces to send demons away.

Yes, Chinese culture has featured tigers in different ways. Army men were even noticed carrying ferocious tiger images on their shields to scare enemies away.

Yet another exclusive tiger belief that the Chinese had was that tigers had long lives and could live for thousands of years. They believed that tigers turned white once they\’ve gone past the five hundred year old threshold. This is why tiger art pieces with white tigers on them actually mean that those tigers had been already old beyond their years.

They also believed that once a tiger passed away its spirit would enter the earth and become Amber. Historically we uncover that the Chinese utilized to call the Amber stone as the soul of the tiger.

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