“The eyes are the spirit of the dragon,” he explained.

No, Zhang was not negligent-he did this on purpose.

By the time Zhang finished, the onlookers couldn’t help but notice that he had missed something pretty obvious-the dragons’ eyes. A devout Buddhist, Zhang was one day commissioned to paint four dragons on a wall of Anle Temple.Īnd thus the story of Zhang’s flyaway artwork begins.Īs Zhang diligently got to work on his masterpiece, curious onlookers admired his prowess. The prince was so impressed that he nicknamed the temple after the technique Zhang used.īut the most famous story of Zhang was recorded in The Volumes of Classic Paintings. From afar, they looked three-dimensional, yet up close they were flat. The flowers were in different shades of red and green. The Zhaoling Prince of Liang Dynasty was visiting the Yicheng Temple just outside of Nanjing City, when he noticed a three-dimensional floral motif on the gate painted by Zhang.

In Health Record, author Xu Hao recorded the story of the “Autu Temple,” one of Zhang's works. Today, we delve into a Chinese idiom, “Paint the dragon, dot the eyes.”īack during the Southern Liang Dynasty (502–557 C.E.) lived a painter named Zhang Sengyao who was known for his incredible lifelike paintings. And, like many things passed down from Chinese antiquity, there’s oftentimes that intriguing hint of the divine. We’ve all heard of the likes of Michelangelo and Da Vinci, but China too had its share of artistic talent over the ages.

The eyes of the dragon