Taoist literature, art, miscellany, stories, architecture, music, sculpture, relics, calligraphy and painting.
An introduction to Taoist art of the Wei, Jin, and Northern and Southern Dynasties: early Taoist statues shaped by Buddhist models, the Dunhuang murals of the King Father of the East and the Queen Mother of the West, and the Taoist works of painters such as Gu Kaizhi, Lu Tanwei, Zhang Sengyou, and Cao Zhongda.
The life and learning of Tao Hongjing, the great Taoist master of the Southern Dynasties, and a close reading of his poem answering the emperor’s summons and his letter to Secretary Xie, which celebrate the white clouds of Mount Mao as “an immortals’ capital within the realm of desire.”
An introduction to Taoist ritual music: its origins and development through the dynasties, its divisions into chanted and instrumental forms, yin and yang chants, main and lighter tunes, the Quanzhen, Zhengyi, and regional traditions, and a guide to eleven classic pieces.
Traces how Zhenwu’s image changed from the tortoise-and-snake Xuanwu to an armored war god in the Tang and Song, a barefoot ascetic with loose hair, and a refined scholar in the Ming and Qing; examines the political, sectarian, folk, and aesthetic causes; and appreciates a Ming portrait of Zhenwu.
What frugality means as one of the Three Treasures of the Tao Te Ching: from Laozi’s warnings against extravagance to Taoist precepts, the austerities of the Quanzhen patriarchs, masters counseling emperors, morality books, and an ecological ethic—frugality in both material life and desire.
Starting from the Five Dragons Palace on Mount Qian in Liaoning, this piece explains Taoist belief in the Dragon Kings: their power over wind and rain, their many titles, the merit of reciting the dragon king scriptures to pray for rain, imperial enfeoffments, and the Dragon King’s sacred proclamation.
Fifteen anecdotes of the Taoist world: a master who neither ate nor drank, an old practitioner who grew young again, a Wudang Taoist who died seated after grain avoidance, a centenarian performing Taihe boxing, a high priest praying for clear skies, a dead cypress reviving—and a cautionary tale that cultivating the Tao begins with the heart.
How the gilded bronze Golden Hall on Tianzhu Peak was cast in Beijing and shipped to Wudang, and the awe-inspiring spectacle of fireballs rolling around it in thunderstorms—leaving it brighter than before—along with the folk legend that Zhenwu sends the thunder gods to cleanse it.
On the ridge of the Golden Hall atop the Wudang Mountains sits a bronze sea horse that, legend says, breathes out mist and hisses during summer rains—one of the Four Wonders of Wudang, recorded even in a Qianlong-era gazetteer.
An account of a free public class on Taoist tea practice: the links between tea and Taoism from Ge Xuan’s tea garden to Emperor Huizong’s treatise, tea etiquette, four historical ways of drinking tea, the symbolism of the “Three Powers bowl,” and finding stillness in a cup.
How Chinese painting depicts the Taoist mountains of the immortals: the “immortal isles in the sea” and “mountain pavilions of the immortals” formats, landscapes of grotto-heavens and blessed lands, and story paintings of seeking the Tao—images expressing the unity of heaven and humanity.
An inquiry into the four Celestial Masters—Zhang, Ge, Xu, and Qiu—who wait at the Hall of Universal Brightness in Journey to the West: the lives, legends, and titles of Zhang Daoling, Ge Xuan, and Xu Xun, and evidence from Taoist scriptures that “Qiu Hongji” is the ancient immortal Fuqiu Gong.
How Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang dreamed of Zhong Kui catching a ghost and had Wu Daozi paint it, why Huang Quan dared not alter Wu’s picture, how later painters portrayed Zhong Kui and the custom of hanging his image, and the many kinds of Zhong Kui art and their meanings.
The ritual rules governing Taoist image-making and a survey of surviving masterpieces by era—from Northern Dynasties shared Buddhist-Taoist niches through Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing works to modern statues—and what Taoist sculpture means for the history of Chinese art.
How Taoist sacred statuary came to be: from early Taoism’s view that the Tao has no form and needs no images, to image-making from the Liu Song period onward under Buddhist influence, and the aesthetics of “portraying form through spirit” that unite the transcendent and the worldly.