The Dragon's Pupil

"画龙点睛" hua long dian jing
Meaning: To put the final touch and complete the piece. The final touch brings 'life' to the piece so to say!
Literal translation: Drawing the dragon's pupils

Felt like playing around with some colors on a scrap piece of paper I had and this turned out. Pretty quick and loose little thing, not serious at all. Halfway through I smacked an idiom from my primary school textbooks on because it fitted eerily well?

Story behind the idiom:
One day in ancient China, an emperor asked a famous artist to paint a mural of nine dragons on his new wall. (Nine is a lucky number and is often associated with the emperor of China. Nine dragons were often sewn onto the emperor's clothing etc. Dragons are also symbols of power and longevity.) The artist agreed and set to work. When the artist finished he presented his work to the emperor. It was a stunning masterpiece, nine ferocious dragons that looked like they were ready to fly out of the wall.. except none of the dragons had any pupils, their eyes looked flat and dead. When the emperor asked the artist why he didn't draw any pupils in, the artist replied that "eyes are the essence of the dragon's soul, if i paint them in the dragons will fly away" Nobody believed him so the artist demonstrated by drawing in the pupils of one dragon, which immediately lifted of the wall with a snarl and flew into the sky.

This is how I remember the story being told to us when I was in primary school, very entertaining and definitely one of my favorite idioms. It demonstrates how small touches are what truly complete something!

_{~Talens Van Gogh watercolors, white gel pen, black taro marker}
Copyright art to me, please do NOT use this work in any way or form without my express permission! Thank you!

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Sketchblog: syphelliumartist.tumblr.com/ Inspiration blog: inspiration-bucket.tumblr.com/ Art instagram: instagram.com/syphellium