The Image of Planets in Early Chinese Pictorial Tradition (On the Example of the Scroll “The Appearance of the Deities of the Five Planets and Twenty-Eight Constellations” (Wu Xing Ershiba Su Shenxing Tu 五星二十八宿神形圖))
The Image of Planets in Early Chinese Pictorial Tradition (On the Example of the Scroll “The Appearance of the Deities of the Five Planets and Twenty-Eight Constellations” (Wu Xing Ershiba Su Shenxing Tu 五星二十八宿神形圖))
Чирич П.С.
Abstract
The article examines the iconography of planetary deities in early Chinese painting, using the scroll “Divinities of the Planets and Constellationsˮ as an example, attributed to the 6th-century artist Zhang Sengyou. The analysis focuses on the depiction of Saturn, which is compared to the iconography of this planetary deity in the visual traditions of other cultures. The article provides the first translation of the scroll’s text into Russian. The analysis traces the probable path of borrowing iconographic attributes, and presents considerations regarding the possible dating of the scroll.