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Mirror Flower, Water Moon
Mirror Flower, Water Moon (; literally "''Mirror Flower, Water Moon''"), is a Chinese proverb/phrase (a Chengyu and spread in other languages in East Asia like in Yojijukugo), meaning something that can be seen but not touched, like a flower reflected in a mirror or the moon reflected on the water's surface; something that is beautiful but unattainable dreams, a mirage. It can also mean something that seems so tangible and simple but reflects a much deeper meaning. This name references {{lang, ja, 鏡中的花，水裡的月, which is the shorter form of a Chinese idiom (or ''chéngyǔ''), literally meaning a "''flower seen in the mirror, moon on the water's surface''". See also * Flowers of the Four Seasons * Four Gentlemen * Smoke and mirrors * Three Friends of Winter * Four Treasures of the Study Four Treasures of the Study, Four Jewels of the Study or Four Friends of the Study is an expression used to denote the brush, ink, paper and ink stone used in Chinese and o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chinese Idiom
''Chengyu'' () are a type of traditional Chinese idiomatic expression, most of which consist of four characters. ''Chengyu'' were widely used in Classical Chinese and are still common in vernacular Chinese writing and in the spoken language today. According to the most stringent definition, there are about 5,000 ''chéngyǔ'' in the Chinese language, though some dictionaries list over 20,000. ''Chéngyǔ'' are considered the collected wisdom of the Chinese culture, and contain the experiences, moral concepts, and admonishments from previous generations of Chinese. Nowadays, ''chéngyǔ'' still play an important role in Chinese conversations and education. Chinese idioms are one of four types of formulaic expressions (熟语/熟語, ''shúyǔ''), which also include collocations (惯用语/慣用語 ''guànyòngyǔ''), two-part allegorical sayings (歇后语/歇後語 ''xiēhòuyǔ''), and proverbs (谚语/諺語 ''yànyǔ''). They are often referred to as Chinese idioms or fou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chinese Proverbs
Many Chinese proverbs exist, some of which have entered English in forms that are of varying degrees of faithfulness. A notable example is " A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step", from the ''Dao De Jing'', ascribed to Laozi. They cover all aspects of life, and are widely used in everyday speech, in contrast to the decline of the use of proverbs in Western cultures. The majority are distinct from high literary forms such as xiehouyu and chengyu, and are ''common sayings'' of usually anonymous authorship, originating through "little tradition" rather than "great tradition". Collections and sources In the preface and introduction to his 1875 categorized collection of Chinese proverbs, Wesleyan missionary William Scarborough observed that there had theretofore been very few European-language works on the subject, listing John Francis Davis' 1823 ''Chinese Moral Maxims'', Paul Hubert Perny's 1869 ''Proverbes Chinois'', and Justus Doolittle's 1872 ''Vocabulary and Ha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Four Treasures Of The Study
Four Treasures of the Study, Four Jewels of the Study or Four Friends of the Study is an expression used to denote the ink brush, brush, inkstick, ink, Xuan paper, paper and ink stone used in Chinese calligraphy, Chinese and other East Asian Calligraphy, calligraphic traditions. The name appears to originate in the time of the Southern and Northern Dynasties (420–589 AD).Chinesetoday.com.Chinesetoday.com." ''趣談「文房四寶」.'' Retrieved on 2010-11-27. Four Treasures The Four Treasures is expressed in a Chengyu, four-word couplet: "," (Pinyin: ) "''The four jewels of the study: Brush, Ink, Paper, Inkstone.''"Big5.xinhuanet.com.Big5.xinhuanet.com" ''走近文房四寶.'' Retrieved on 2010-11-27. In the couplet mentioned, each of the Treasures is referred to by a single epithet; however, each of these are usually known by a compound name (''i.e.'' ink brush, The Brush: , literally "''hair brush/pen''). The individual treasures have a "treasured" form, each being produc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Three Friends Of Winter
The Three Friends of Winter is an art motif that comprises the pine, bamboo, and plum. . The Chinese celebrated the pine, bamboo and plum together, as they observed that these plants do not wither as the cold days deepen into the winter season unlike many other plants. Known by the Chinese as the ''Three Friends of Winter'', they later entered the conventions of East Asian culture and Vietnamese culture. Together they symbolize steadfastness, perseverance, and resilience. They are highly regarded in Confucianism and as such represent the scholar-gentleman's ideal. History The Three Friends of Winter are common in works of art from Chinese culture and those cultures influenced by it. The three are first recorded as appearing together in a ninth-century poem by the poet Zhu Qingyu () of the Tang dynasty. The Southern Song dynasty artist Zhao Mengjian (, c. 1199–1264), among others of the time, made this grouping popular in painting. The actual term "Three Friends of Winter" ca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Smoke And Mirrors
Smoke and mirrors is a classic technique in magical illusions that makes an entity appear to hover in empty space. It was documented as early as 1770 and spread widely after its use by the charlatan Johann Georg Schröpfer, who claimed the apparitions to be conjured spirits. It subsequently became a fixture of 19th-century phantasmagoria shows. The illusion relies on a hidden projector (known then as a magic lantern The magic lantern, also known by its Latin name , is an early type of image projector that used pictures—paintings, prints, or photographs—on transparent plates (usually made of glass), one or more lenses, and a light source. Because a si ...) the beam of which reflects off a mirror into a cloud of smoke, which in turn scattering, scatters the beam to create an image. The phrase "smoke and mirrors" has entered common English use to refer to any proposal that, when examined closely, proves to be an illusion. History Johann Georg Schröpfer Johann Georg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Four Gentlemen
In Chinese art, the Four Gentlemen or Four Noble Ones (), literally meaning "Four Junzi", is a collective term referring to four plants: the plum blossom, the orchid, the bamboo, and the chrysanthemum. The term compares the four plants to Confucian ''junzi'', or "gentlemen". They are most typically depicted in traditional ink and wash painting and they belong to the category of bird-and-flower painting in Chinese art. In line with the wide use of nature as imagery in literary and artistic creation, the Four Gentlemen are a recurring theme for their symbolism of uprightness, purity, humility, perseverance against harsh conditions, among other virtues valued in the Chinese traditions. The Four Gentlemen have been used in Chinese painting since the time of the Song dynasty (960–1279) because of their refined beauty, and were later adopted elsewhere in East Asia by artists in Korea, Japan, and Vietnam. As they represent the four seasons (the plum blossom for winter, the orchid f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flowers Of The Four Seasons
The Flowers of the Four Seasons ( zh, 四季名花, ''Sìjì Mínghuā''; vi, Tứ quý danh hoa) are a group of flowers found in Chinese and other East Asian (such as Vietnamese) art and culture which represent the four seasons, consisting of: * (春兰) Chūnlán - Spring Orchid, * (夏荷) Xiahé - Summer Lotus, * (秋菊) Qiūjú - Autumn Chrysanthemum, * and (冬梅) Dōngméi - Winter plum blossom. They contain three of the elements of the Four Gentlemen. Gallery File:Ciruelo en flor.jpg, Plum blossoms (contemporary) File:Orchid - Hu Zhengyan.PNG, Orchid - Hu Zhengyan (1633) File:Xian'e Changchun Album 08.jpg, '' Chrysanthemums'' from the Xian'e Changchun Album by Giuseppe Castiglione (1688-1766) File:Elegance of Lotus Looking from Heaven.jpg, "Elegance of Lotus Looking from Heaven" (contemporary) See also * Flower emblems in China * Flower emblems in Vietnam *Three Friends of Winter *List of Chinese symbols, designs, and art motifs A list of Chinese symbols, de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mirage
A mirage is a naturally-occurring optical phenomenon in which light rays bend via refraction to produce a displaced image of distant objects or the sky. The word comes to English via the French ''(se) mirer'', from the Latin ''mirari'', meaning "to look at, to wonder at". Mirages can be categorized as "inferior" (meaning lower), "superior" (meaning higher) and " Fata Morgana", one kind of superior mirage consisting of a series of unusually elaborate, vertically stacked images, which form one rapidly-changing mirage. In contrast to a hallucination, a mirage is a real optical phenomenon that can be captured on camera, since light rays are actually refracted to form the false image at the observer's location. What the image appears to represent, however, is determined by the interpretive faculties of the human mind. For example, inferior images on land are very easily mistaken for the reflections from a small body of water. Inferior mirage In an inferior mirage, the mirage ima ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mirror
A mirror or looking glass is an object that Reflection (physics), reflects an image. Light that bounces off a mirror will show an image of whatever is in front of it, when focused through the lens of the eye or a camera. Mirrors reverse the direction of the image in an equal yet opposite angle from which the light shines upon it. This allows the viewer to see themselves or objects behind them, or even objects that are at an angle from them but out of their field of view, such as around a corner. Natural mirrors have existed since prehistoric times, such as the surface of water, but people have been manufacturing mirrors out of a variety of materials for thousands of years, like stone, metals, and glass. In modern mirrors, metals like silver or aluminium are often used due to their high reflectivity, applied as a thin coating on glass because of its naturally smooth and very Hardness (materials science), hard surface. A mirror is a Wave (physics), wave reflector. Light consis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flower
A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants (plants of the division Angiospermae). The biological function of a flower is to facilitate reproduction, usually by providing a mechanism for the union of sperm with eggs. Flowers may facilitate outcrossing (fusion of sperm and eggs from different individuals in a population) resulting from cross-pollination or allow selfing (fusion of sperm and egg from the same flower) when self-pollination occurs. There are two types of pollination: self-pollination and cross-pollination. Self-pollination occurs when the pollen from the anther is deposited on the stigma of the same flower, or another flower on the same plant. Cross-pollination is when pollen is transferred from the anther of one flower to the stigma of another flower on a different individual of the same species. Self-pollination happens in flowers where the stamen and carpel mature at the same time, and are positi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
