Fw: H-ASIA: Chinese characters for leiwen (response)

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ryan Dunch" <Ryan.Dunch@UALBERTA.CA>
To: <H-ASIA@H-NET.MSU.EDU>
Sent: Saturday, May 21, 2011 4:48 AM
Subject: H-ASIA: Chinese characters for leiwen (response)

> H-ASIA
> May 20, 2011
>
> Chinese characters for leiwen (response)
> ************************************************************************
> From: Rui Oliveira Lopes <rui-o-lopes@idearte.org>
>
> Dear Colleague,
>
> I believe that leiwen is not a thunder pattern but a cloud pattern
> instead. Thus I think that the correct Chinese characters for leiwen are 纇
> (lei), which means knot and 雯 (wen), which means cloud patterns or
> coloring of cloud. The reliefs on bronze surfaces give the light and
> shadow contrast and the intermingled clouds resemblance rope knots.
>
> In my opinion, the characters 雷 (thunder) 文 (culture) does not make much
> sense, even considering that 文 character was often inscribed on oracle
> bones and bronze vessels. The cloud pattern is an archetypal image that
> represents the ancestral world, the world of the spiritual ancestors and
> the world beyond the living. The inhabitants of this world beyond are the
> dragons and the birds (that have the ability to fly into the sky) which
> were often depicted in bronze vessels over the cloud pattern. In Chinese
> art, since Han dynasty, probably under the influence of Buddhism, cloud
> patterns became the vehicle of the Heavenly Gods and Goddess when they
> came and descend from sky to intervene in the living world.
>
> I hope this could be helpful.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Rui Oliveira Lopes
> Assistant Researcher, Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Lisbon
> Tel: 00 351 96 261 73 10
> mail: rui-o-lopes@idearte.org
> rui.o.lopes@gmail.com
>
>
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