The Establishment And Evolution Of The Image Of "Liu Hai Plays Toad" In Scroll Paintings

Liu Hai Playing with the Toad is a famous image of mammon in Chinese folk arts today;in fact,there're also many images very similar to Liu Hai Playing with the Toad have shown in scroll paintings since Yuan-Dynasty.All of those paintings show a same character:a immortal in loose hair with a three-legged toad,however there're some differences in the details.The subject of this dissertation is mainly focused on those scroll paintings.The article first arrange the ancient legends and early images of the toad,and then take the Yen Hui's work Toad Immortal as an example,try to find out the original source and identity of Liu Hai Playing with the Toad.The last part take the large number of Liu Hai Playing with the Toad in Ming-Dynasty's court paintings as the main object of discussion,to explore the changes of both image and function after this subject enter the court,thus uncovering the reason why this iconography transform from Taoist to the God of wealth.The brief conclusions of this paper are as follows:1.The image of Liu Hai playing with toad was started from "Toad Immortal"in Yen Hui's painting,which mainly referenced the Zen masters' image in Zen painting,like Hanshan and Shide.The identity of the "Toad Immortal"is Bai Yuchan,a leader of Taoist Jindan School Southern Sect.2.The southern folk painters who inherited Yan Hui's style brought this image into the Ming-Dynasty court,it divided into "Immortal style" and"Taoist style",represent the two identities:Liu Haichan and Bai Yuchan,not only shows the meaning of religious,but also as a famous subject in the paintings of Royal birthday celebration.The function of the birthday celebration led to the prominence of the "a string of coins" element in the picture,which gradually lost its original identity and been misunderstood as the God of wealth among the people.