Qing, Dragons, Red Lacquer

Yesterday was our group's second meeting in Memphis. We met at the Belz Museum of Asian and Judaic Art. This isn't a very large museum, but it does have a wonderful collection of Chinese artifacts. There are many amazing pieces of jade and ivory carvings. Check out the mystery balls if you go, or the jade chains that are long chains made of jade that are cut from ONE piece of jade.
It really is amazing.

We learned some interesting facts about the imperial world of the Qing dynasties and about Chinese imperial dragons. I'll mention three things here that stood out.

First: The Qing dynasty is also known as the Manchurian Dynasty. It was the last ruling dynasty of China prior to the founding of The People's Republic of China. The Manchurian were horsemen that were not ethnic Han Chinese, so there are some differences in their rule.
One of these can be seen in the design of the imperial robes. If you look at the robes prior to the Qing (pronounced Ching) dynasty, they don't have cuffs on the robes. They are either flared out and large or they are just straight sleeves, like the image below.

The Qing/Manchurians were horsemen from the plains, and greatly loved and depended on the horse. It is thought that the cuffs on their robes, such as the previous image to the top left, were formed to look like the horse's hoof.

Also notice that both of these robes are yellow. That is the imperial color. You will also notice they have the imperial dragon on them(click the images for a more detailed view of the dragon). The imperial dragon is different from the other dragons, because he has 5 claws. Other Chinese nobles would have dragons with 2 or 3 or 4 claws, but only the emperor would have the five clawed dragon.

Below is the Qing Imperial Dragon. Notice the yellow background and the five claws.
Another interesting thing about the Chinese Imperial Dragon, is that he is made up of nine different parts. He is made from nine different animals. Can you find the nine different animals represented in the dragon?

Another interesting artifact is the red lacquer they use to create objects, anything from a chair to a writing set seen here. They take wood and build the base of the object from the wood. Then the red lacquer is applied many many times until it is thick enough to start carving into the shapes wanted in and on the object(again click on the images for more detail). It is really amazing when you think about the TIME involved in all of these artistic processes. Something that in today's world of instant everything seems virtually impossible, or something that would take at least one lifetime to create.