Drawing Animals Without Eyes 画动物不画眼

The story of painting animals without eyes was first told in the book Taiping Guangji (Tai Ping Anthologies).

‘During the first year of the Qin dynasty, a man named Yi, who was good in carving and painting, was presented to the First Emperor.

By spurting out vermilion and green stone from his mouth onto the ground, he can transform them immediately into many funny faces and various things. When he carved stone into various types of animals, the animals were extremely lifelike that even their hairs appeared to be real thing.

He also marked the carving time on the chest of the animals.

By laying a cloth on the ground, he could paint rivers, maintains and maps of all states within the small piece of cloth.

The dragon and phoenix drawn by him were so lifelike that it appeared that they were ever ready to fly away into the sky. But no eyes would be drawn. If the eyes were drawn, the animals would really fly away. The First Emperor sighed and said, ‘These are not real things, how can they fly away?’ He allowed the painters to draw an eye on each of two jade tigers on a painting. In ten days, both jade tigers disappeared and nobody knew where to look for them.

Residents lived near mountains and rivers reported that they saw two tigers, each had only one eye. They always moved together and were inseparable as body and shadow. They looked the same, even the hair and colour looked exactly the same. They also looked different from the normal tigers.

In the following year, the Western people presented two tigers to the First Emperor, each had only one eye. The First Emperor inspected them and suspected they were from the painting. The tigers were killed and the marks on their chests shown that they were indeed painted in the first year of his reign.’

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有关画动物不画眼睛的故事最先记载于《太平广记》。

秦始皇元年，骞霄国献刻玉善画工名裔。

使含丹青以漱地，即成魑魅及鬼怪群物之象；刻石为百兽之形，毛发宛若真矣。

皆铭其臆前，记以年月。

工人以绢画地。方寸之内，写四渎五岳列国之图。

又为龙凤，骞翥若飞。皆不得作目，作必飞走也。始皇嗟曰：“刻画之形，何能飞走。”使以淳漆各点两玉虎一眼睛，旬日则失之，不知何所在。

山泽人云：“见二白虎，各无一眼，相随而行，毛色形相，异于常见者。”

至明年，西方献两白虎，皆无一眼。始皇发槛视之，疑是先所失者，乃刺杀之，检其臆前，果是元年所刻玉虎也。