Label Type
Tombstone LabelLabel
Dragon Boat Festival
Zhao Yanfeng (Chinese, act. late 20th century)
1996
Paint on rice paper
Gift of Andrea and Irv Green, 2019.1.16Label Type
Cultural/Historical ContextLabel
This painting depicts another example of distortion in Huxian artwork where the distortion of heads allows facial expressions and characteristics to show, not just the tops of heads.
This painting was created in the year 1996 by artist Zhao Yanfeng. It depicts the creation of traditional zongzi (“tzung tzu”) which is a rice dumpling wrapped in bamboo leaves. Historically, on the fifth day of the fifth month of the lunar calendar, a group of women make zongzi, which is the traditional food of the Dragon Boat Festival.
The festival origin is as follows: Many years ago an emperor rejected a great poet’s vision for clean government and a better life for the people. Discouraged, the poet jumped into the Miluo River and drowned. On the anniversary of the poet’s death, people would jump into the river with the zongzi, in symbolic hope that fish and other river creatures would eat the rice instead of the poet’s body. Then the Dragon Boats would race to scare the creatures away. Originally this festival was celebrated only at the Miluo River. Since then, it has spread around the country. The zongzi are eaten rather than thrown into the river, but the dragon boats still race.