Inspiration for "True Figure of Time"

Author/Tianwaike

I remember when I was reading "Famous Paintings of Past Dynasties", it mentioned "The True Shape of the Five Sacred Mountains", so I always wondered if I could create a "True Shape of Time" as a reference. From my personal understanding, judging from the word "true shape", it should be the understanding of Taoism. As the name suggests, it is to look at the real life form of the five mountains in the world at a high level from the perspective of "reason". So I searched on the Internet and found that there are pictures of the real shapes of the Five Sacred Mountains on the stele, but they are just five talismans. I don't understand their meaning, so I can't refer to them.

        Personally, I think that as an artistic expression, if it is difficult to understand, it means that the level of creation is not high; As for this creation, how to express the image of the God of Time, in addition to still following the characteristics of traditional Chinese painting in terms of techniques, at the same time borrowed some of the conditions seen by fellow practitioners in Tianmu in terms of modeling factors. In my memory, I saw an article written by a fellow practitioner mentioned in the article: Time is the image of a Taoist old man, his hair is like flames, there is a Tai Chi on his forehead, he is wearing black and white long clothes, and the color of his face is constantly changing between black and white..., just remember These.

        Time is a god without form, and those who are cultivating will know it. Now more and more people can realize this. So the author thinks that "time" is visualized as a god. In fact, judging from the mythology system of ancient Greece and Rome, time and space are gods, and many concepts that are only abstract nouns in modern times are actually gods! However, these concepts do not exist in the current Eastern culture and Western Christian culture, so modern people generally do not understand it. In fact, not all of them are incomprehensible. The author finds that people with knowledge can still understand it. It is the cultural gap and modern consciousness that cause the public to not understand it. If you can understand these ancient myths and legends a little bit, you can still understand the life forms of these invisible gods.

        Then, in the specific implementation of the creation, the artist was instructed to create according to the technical requirements of Buddha painting, and the image should contain the above-mentioned characteristics: there is a red and blue Tai Chi on the forehead, and the hair is composed of flames. In addition, can some Buddhist characteristics be added to the image, such as sitting in the double-legged position, performing the big lotus handprint, and holding a white transparent ball in the palm of the hand ("The white transparent ball represents the universe").

        In the process of creation, one day I saw the ancient Buddha sculptures in Afghanistan on the Internet. The style was very different from what we usually see. Hu Feng". Later, I discussed with the author whether to add these characteristics: the image of a middle-aged man, with a green beard but at the same time looking young, with two earrings. After a period of time, this picture was created.

* This article is published with the authorization of the author.