Representations of the pheasant in the Song and Yuan dynasties: Shifting identities of the ideal literati

Abstract

The pheasant or phasianidae, also known in Chinese as the zhi雉, jinji錦雞, shanji山雞, jinji金雞 and bi鷩is regarded a beautiful creature with colourful patterned feathers. It was an established subject matter serving as an auspicious sign for wealth and fortune in the genre of flower-and-bird painting by the Tang dynasty (618-907). My study traces the ways in which the pheasant motif came to represent the ideal scholar gentleman in the Song dynasty (960-1279) and the Yuan dynasty (1271-1368). I propose that the developments in the pictorial representations of pheasant were aligned with the shift in the identity of the literati from the domination of elite men, that is the aristocrats or educated scholar-officials in the Song. In the Yuan dynasty, as wealthy merchants laid claims to culture, they emulated elite artistic practices in efforts to assert their social status. I demonstrate that the pheasant was valued as a symbol of court official with integrity in the Northern Song dynasty (960-1127) and was then used as a motif to represent a victim or prey under attack in the Southern Song dynasty (1127-1279). The meaning of pheasant in visual representations further expanded and evolved to stand for a loyalist recluse scholar and wealthy educated elite in Jiangnan in the Yuan dynasty.