Formal and Iconographic Analysis of Table Screen Depicting the Daoist Deity Doumu and Her Entourage
The gilded bronze sculpture Table Screen Depicting the Daoist Deity Doumu and Her Entourage (Asian Art Museum, San Francisco) was made in approximately 1500-1700 during the Ming Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty. As the Mother of the Dipper, Doumu represents the Big Dipper, and her nine sons are the stars of the Big Dipper, two invisible. The iconography of Doumu was originated from Marici, an Indian Buddhist Goddess of dawn who was introduced to China during the Tang Dynasty (Pregadio, 2008). But Doumu was not recorded in Daoist literature until the Yuan Dynasty. Both Doumu and Marici give people health, wealth, happiness, and longevity, and are deities of high popularity (Kohn, 2000). With 16.7 cm in …show more content…
With the employment of hieratic scale, Doumu is shown as the largest figure in this piece, and thus the most attractive. She has warriors and commanders guarding around her. Two warriors brandishing weapons are at her sides and a small charioteer and three commanders including Leigong, the Lord of Thunder with a bird’s beak, are in front of her chariot. All the figures are inside a circle with lucid ganoderma-like auspicious clouds in the background, resembling the Celestial Court in the sky. At the bottom of the artwork outside the circle are two Chinese peonies, symbolizing propitiousness and happiness. The combination of a circle within a rectangular table screen is reminiscent of the “round sky and square earth”, which is an ancient basic concept of Chinese geography first proposed at least two thousand years ago. It expresses the idea that the orbicular sky covers on the flat rectangular earth, which is of great significance in the development of Chinese geography (Zhao, 1992). So this table screen shows that Doumu has great power and is a very important goddess in the
The gilded bronze sculpture Table Screen Depicting the Daoist Deity Doumu and Her Entourage (Asian Art Museum, San Francisco) was made in approximately 1500-1700 during the Ming Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty. As the Mother of the Dipper, Doumu represents the Big Dipper, and her nine sons are the stars of the Big Dipper, two invisible. The iconography of Doumu was originated from Marici, an Indian Buddhist Goddess of dawn who was introduced to China during the Tang Dynasty (Pregadio, 2008). But Doumu was not recorded in Daoist literature until the Yuan Dynasty. Both Doumu and Marici give people health, wealth, happiness, and longevity, and are deities of high popularity (Kohn, 2000). With 16.7 cm in …show more content…
With the employment of hieratic scale, Doumu is shown as the largest figure in this piece, and thus the most attractive. She has warriors and commanders guarding around her. Two warriors brandishing weapons are at her sides and a small charioteer and three commanders including Leigong, the Lord of Thunder with a bird’s beak, are in front of her chariot. All the figures are inside a circle with lucid ganoderma-like auspicious clouds in the background, resembling the Celestial Court in the sky. At the bottom of the artwork outside the circle are two Chinese peonies, symbolizing propitiousness and happiness. The combination of a circle within a rectangular table screen is reminiscent of the “round sky and square earth”, which is an ancient basic concept of Chinese geography first proposed at least two thousand years ago. It expresses the idea that the orbicular sky covers on the flat rectangular earth, which is of great significance in the development of Chinese geography (Zhao, 1992). So this table screen shows that Doumu has great power and is a very important goddess in the