What kind of stories are circulating about the origin of shadow art

There are many different legends about the origin of shadow art. The earliest legend comes from the story of the savior, Guanyin, who came to earth to preach the teachings of the Buddhist scriptures. "At that time, people did not like to listen to the dry teachings, so the Goddess of Mercy sat sadly under the bamboo forest, picking bamboo leaves to make up all kinds of human figures and can make all kinds of movements, she found it very interesting, suddenly, the Goddess of Mercy remembered that if these bamboo leaves made up the human figures to perform the story of the Buddhist how moving it would be! Later, when she preached the sutra, she hung up a bamboo curtain and danced the bamboo leaf figures behind the curtain. At night, the Goddess of Mercy used the light of oil lamps to reflect the shadows of the bamboo figures on the bamboo curtains and performed various Buddhist stories, thus attracting many people to watch. From this, shadow theater arose."

Also legend has it that in the Western Han Dynasty, when Emperor Liu Huan, a palace consort held a prince playing in front of a window, and skillfully cut tung tree leaves to make a human figure, which was reflected on the window to perform. Legend has it that in the Han Dynasty Emperor Liu Che, because of his wife died prematurely, the emperor misses, there is a Qi less Weng said to its God, so it is the night to open the lamps and candles, set up the tent, Chen wine and meat, the emperor lived in his tent to look away. See a good woman as the appearance of the lady, but also tent sitting and walking, as if the image of the lady.

These legends, although they can not be called the origin of the shadow theater art, but, if combined with the then socio-economic, scientific and cultural, as well as art and music and many other factors to analyze, will feel that these legends do have credibility.

Additionally, the shadow theater in Shaanxi was also known in the early days as the "curtain storytelling". It is a unique, one-of-a-kind tradition.

If the origin of the shadow theater art should be based on literary and historical data, from the currently available historical data, the most similar shadow theater in the Tang Dynasty.

At that time, the social economy and culture could be said to have developed to an unprecedented flourishing, especially the culture and art as well as the spread of religion gained great development. People out of the social needs at that time, in order to make the history books, scriptures recite more vivid, specific, often with the means of painting to supplement. Later on, some people changed their paintings into paper figures with movable joints and used threads to move them to be used in a more visual way for passing on scriptures and telling history. In the history books, we can see that "monks recited sutra scrolls at night and installed screens and set up statues" in the society at that time. The "nightly recitation of scriptures" mentioned here had "candlelight" and stories to be told, and the "mounting of the screen" was equivalent to the "screen" of a modern shadow puppet show. "(i.e., shadow screen), and "set up the image" that is to play the person. The most interesting thing is that, so far, in some areas of our country, such as Tangshan, Luanxian area of the old shadow play artists still perform shadow figures called "pulling the line", "palm line". It can be said with certainty: the shadow play art from the birth to become a complete form of opera art, indeed to go through a long period of years.

About the origin of shadow art, there are two kinds of statements: one says: shadow art is "began in Han", "rise in Tang", "flourished in Song". This is to say that more than 2000 years ago that there is shadow theater. The other argument is based on the written historical materials that can be accessed at present, that the shadow play was invented in the Song Dynasty more than 1,000 years ago. The former is based on reasoning, while the latter is based on historical data, which is certainly justified. Our ancestors in the Han Dynasty before the gradual mastery of a set of skillful carving techniques; but also very early on the discovery of the relationship between sunlight and the shadow of the object changes, the use of which invented the determination of the moment of the "sundial" and can be accurately calculate the calendar "sundial table" and so on. A long time ago, there is a "shadow follows the shadow"; "immediate effect" said. In addition, there are such as the invention of papermaking and the results of the art of painting, etc., have created very favorable conditions for the creation of shadow art in China.