General Information:

This piece was made by Wu Boli between the late 14th to early 15th centuries. Wu Boli was a Daoist priest at the Shangqing Temple on Dragon Tiger Mountain, he painted this piece for Zhang Yuchu, the 43rd Daoist “pope”. This piece is ink painted onto a hanging scroll and was based off of an account by painter Jing Hao that describes a giant pine tree that appeared to look like a dragon reaching to the Milky Way. For many pines represent the moral character of the virtuous man, but here the tree might represent the Daoist sage or “perfect being”.

Eli’s Observations:

While this work has the word dragon in it’s title it’s not actually a depiction of a dragon, unlike the other two, instead it is just a painting of a coiling tree. While dragons are the focal point of this gallery, this painting should still be included for its dragon like images and since the painting is based off of Jing Hao stating how much the tree looked like a dragon. Still, in this drawing the tree theme is more important than the dragon, since pine trees hold a lot of symbolism, but since it is not technically a dragon, we’ll move on the next one!