Myths and Legends of Ancient Asia

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A SHINTO KAMI

  The term Kami refers to a Shinto or Buddhist revered spirit or god. The Tengu is an example of the Buddhist or Shinto Kami of tradition and is shown here as a very angel-like nature spirit with dark wings. Tengu shape-shifted into many forms over centuries but often appeared as a monstrous anthropomorphized bird ~ usually part woman and cast diverse kinds of spells and performed mischief, not too terribly unlike the Hobgoblin of Irish fairy folklore. Originally seen by Buddhists as disruptive demons or harbringers of war, the tengu's image gradually softened into  protective (but still dangerous) spirit guardians of the forests and mountains. 

 Noted for being fond of matchmaking, this Tengu influences a  truly charmed romantic encounter in the forest. As a gesture of great respect to a beautiful lady of high social standing, the romantic Samurai bends down in the Sonkyo sitting style still used by Sumo wrestlers today, being careful not to let his knees touch the ground. The Japanese Samurai Warrior shown is in one example of traditional armour ~ this from the Momoyama period wearing a pale blue laced nuinobe fitted with a sode. Although anachronistic, these shoulder pads were still worn by people of rank.

    The great Samurai and his troop of warriors were so delighted to meet such a fine young man with such good manners that they took him immediately to heart!  So sure were they that it was God's providence that they enlisted him at once to become one of his retainers.   As legend has it, Kintaro then changed his name to Kintoki and served his new master  with legendary distinction...  To this day, when a Japanese baby boy is born his room is often decorated on Boy's day (May 5th ) with a small Kintaro figurine symbolizing the ideal balance of the masculine virtue of great strength with gentleness.

  Susanuo; a much more ancient variation of the universal thunder god legend from world mythology:

     One of the greatest characters from Japanese Mythology was Susanuo, the son of Izanagi. He was the god of thunder, fertility and agriculture, very similar to Thor and Zeus from western Mythology. He was cast out of heaven, and his totem was the serpent.  He was a dragon slayer of the first rank and killed a great eight headed dragon. He was dressed in a large cloak to disguise his weapons and tricked it by getting it drunk by leaving out eight large bowls of saki.., ( a powerful Japanese liquor made from rice )

      Suddenly he threw back his cloak and fell on the monster and cut it to pieces. The poor girl in chains Susanuo rescues in the story was the youngest of eight daughters, and all her sisters were slain as human sacrifices to the great hard drinking eight- headed dragon. Susanuo took her for his wife and she became the legendary princess Kushinada. In the middle of the dragon's tail he found a wonderful magic sword which he pulled out of the bloody carcass and presented to his elder sister Ameraterasu, the goddess of the sun.

   In later stories the sword is given the name Kushinagi and has been transmitted to our own times as one of the three great emblems of Japanese Imperial power.

THE CHINESE DRAGON

Symbol of the spirit of China

       The First dragon appeared to the mythical emperor Fu-hsi, & filled the hole in the sky made by the monster Kung Kung. Its waking, sleeping and breathing determined day & night, season and weather. There are many differences & similarities between the Classical dragon & the Chinese dragon, these include the ability to fly even without wings, shape-shifting abilities,& of course the general benevolent behavior to the populace.
        The Chinese dragon is made up of nine entities. The head of camel, the eyes of a demon, the ears of a cow, the horns of a stag, the neck of a snake, it's belly a clam's, it's claws that of an eagle, while the soles of his feet are that of a tiger, and the 117 scales that cover it's body are that of a carp. The Chinese dragon has four claws as standard, but the Imperial dragon has five, this is to identify it above the lesser classes. Anyone other than the emperor using the 5 claw motif was put to death. The Chinese dragon (Lung) was a divine bringer of rain, necessary for the good of the people. Throughout Chinese history the dragon has been equated with weather. It is said that some of the worst floodings were caused when a mortal has upset a dragon. Chinese dragons of myth could make themselves as large as the universe or as small as a silkworm.

"Krishna and Kaliya the Demon Serpent" MMXI

In this story Krishna, the ultimate manifestation of the Hindu God-head is exorcising a ferocious malevolent entity in serpent form who had terrorized the villagers, poisoned the waters, and killed all the nearby wildlife - even birds flying by overhead.

Mythology? Of course that depends on your point of view~  more than a billion people do not think this is mythology.

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  Howard David Johnson is a contemporary visual artist and photographer with a background in the natural sciences and history. He works in a wide variety of media ranging from traditional oils,  pastels and others to cutting edge digital media. After a lifetime of drawing and painting, Howard David Johnson's Traditional Realistic Art was exhibited in the British Museum in London in 1996, ( 3 years before he got his first computer ) as well as numerous American ones since, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art. His illustrations have appeared in every major bookstore and gameshop chain in America as well as magazines and educational texts around the world.   Some of his more prestigious clients have included the University of Texas, the Book of the Month Club, Paramount Studios, PBS TV, Adobe Photoshop Auto FX, and J Walter Thompson Advertising. Licenses to print his existing work are available at surprisingly affordable prices. Oil Paintings, Colored pencils, Pastels, Mixed media, and Digital art can also be commissioned for select projects - Click on commission new art below... Working in a variety of traditional and cutting edge digital media he offers his customers a variety of options and more than thirty years of experience. As a commercial illustrator HDJ has not only used the computer but has been involved in the development of imaging software. He delivers the rights to these custom made copyright free illustrations and old fashioned customer service when he does work-for-hire. On his existing works license offers start as low as $100.00

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Original Oil Paintings, Colored pencils, Pastels, Mixed media, and Digital art can be commissioned for select projects - 

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ABOUT THE ARTIST

"Those who are enamoured of practice without science are like a pilot who goes into a ship without rudder or compass and never has any certainty where he is going. Practice should always be based upon a sound knowledge of theory, of which perspective is the guide and gateway, and without it nothing can be done well in any kind of painting."

	The various galleries linked to by the icons above show many examples of His Realistic Art, and are grouped by theme rather than media. There are also sample illustrations from his  upcoming books on Celtic Myth and Legend and World Myth & Legend. Since boyhood he has passionately copied the old masters. To create his work, he usually starts with a thematic concept  followed by a rough realistic pencil sketch, then followed by his photography, often traveling to find suitable scenes and locations and then working in his Photography studio with live models from his sketches. He then assembles a variety of elements which are realistic and original. As a boy he dedicated his life to art in 1960. From 1965- 1999 he used xeroxes and tracings to make his preliminary photo montages. This is patterned after  the manner used by Maxfield Parrish and other 19th century notables. Beginning with a tracing, he then draws or paints from these complex original Computer Photo Montages. Many of these are on display on this web and slated for future completion in a variety of realistic traditional art media. As this happens, the finished work is substituted in the exhibit.
He has built up an enormous library of original source photos to use in his realistic art.  Recently he shot hundreds of aerial photos of clouds at marvelous angles and perspectives & also looking down on the mighty mountains, rivers, & deserts of the American west while flying from Texas to Oregon & back for dynamic source material for realistic flying scenes in upcoming paintings, drawings, and pictures.  For decades he has sought out the most beautiful models & brought them in for sessions in his photography studio. Using a strategy of J.W. Waterhouse, (The old master HDJ imitates most), his wistful & graceful models cannot be underestimated in their contribution to the stunning beauty & the potential for lasting appeal of his work.
His favourite medium for realistic art is colored pencil because of the high speed and low expense, and people began expressing difficulty in telling his colored pencil drawing from photographs in the early 1980's.  In the last 35 plus years he has also mastered Oils, Pastels, Acrylics, Watercolors, Inks, Scratchboard, Gouache, Photography, and the highly controversial digital media ( Art Numérica ) . As a commercial illustrator Johnson has not only used the computer to create art but has been involved in the development of computer imaging software. Working in a realistic style inspired by classic illustrators HDJ is deeply rooted and grounded in the Greco-Roman artistic tradition, Feeling that with realistic art, the human form is the ultimate arena for artistic expression. His lifelong dream came true when his Traditional Realistic Art was exhibited in the British Museum in London England in 1996. His mixed media has also been displayed in numerous other ones since such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Having achieved international acclaim as a traditional visual artist he discovered digital media ( Art Numérica ) in 1999. Because of his passion for realistic art and photography he elected to embrace it and joyfully be a part of this historic era in the visual arts as a 21st century realistic visual artist. See this drawing full size by clicking on it...      Since 1972 when he began his career as a scientific illustrator for the University of Texas he has earned his living illustrating all kinds of books, magazines, CD covers, and all sorts of games, greeting cards, calendars, portraits, murals and the like with his contemporary realistic art... HDJ's Realistic Art has appeared in every major bookstore chain and fantasy gaming shop in The United States and has been used in educational texts and magazines all over the world. This site features realistic paintings & pictures for the twenty-first Century including some oil paintings, as well as lots of other exciting media such as colored pencil drawings, pastel paintings, acrylic paintings, gouache paintings, watercolor paintings, and pencil drawings, and also featuring studio,  field, & aerial photography,  digital painting and photo-montage and all these media mixed in an assortment of experimental combinations...Working in a wide variety of media to create his realistic art he offers his customers a host of payment and product options. He delivers the rights to these custom made copyright free illustrations and old fashioned customer service when he does work-for-hire. He loves to paint custom oil paintings and accepts commissions with down payments starting at five thousand dollars. On his existing works his low cost license offers start at only 100 dollars. *****

Bonus Section:

Personal Opinion Essays on Realistic Art yesterday and today by the artist.

In addition to his mastery of traditional media, Howard David Johnson now combines drawing, painting, photography, and digital media with more than thirty years of experience in these fields to create his Realistic Art Numérica in 21st century paintings and pictures.

Did you know the Greek word "Photography" means "Painting with Light"? Today with the advent of computers it truly lives up to it's name. Due to developments in Art and Technology, a broader definition of painting is needed than that which is found in common usage.

Introducing Art Numérica -an exciting merger of traditional visual art and cutting edge technology... a new art form for the twenty- first century... Art Numérica is not limited to realistic art but also offers limitless horizons for everything from cartoons to abstractions.

It is the most dramatic development in the visual arts since the Renaissance. In the words of Al Jolson in the movie world's first talking picture" You ain't seen nothin' yet!"

"Painting, in art, the action of laying colour on a surface, or the representation of objects by this means. Considered one of the fine arts"

~Encyclopaedia Britannica. 

"Painting. noun. 1.) The act or employment of laying on colors or paints. 2.) The art of forming figures or objects in colors on canvas or any other surface, or the art of representing to the eye by means of figures and colors any object; the work of an illustrator or painter. 3.) A picture; a likeness or resemblance in shape or colors. 4.) Colors laid on. 5.) Delineation that raises a vivid image in the mind; as in word painting.

~ Webster's Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language

Pastel, Acrylics, and Colored Pencils combined	Snobbism in the arts is nothing new. Some people will tell you that oils are the only valid medium for realistic paintings. That Colored Pencil, Digital, and other Realistic Painting and Drawing Media are not valid  for "real" art. Young artists, Don't let them bother you. Their forerunners used to condemn Pastels before they gained acceptance and called them "crayons" when Johann Alexander Thiele (1685-1752) invented them.  Mercilessly disrespectful  art critics of the time could not stop the Experimentalists no matter how viscously they attacked and derided them. "Crayon-painting" as it was called in England was practiced early on by persecuted pioneers in Switzerland and many other nations. What a debt we owe to these master artists who refused to knuckle under to the pressure of those short-sighted critics during those historic and experimental times. It took until 1870 with the founding of the "Societe` Des Pastellistes" in France that respect came  at last to these heroic & immortal visual artists.
In England the liberation of the Pastellists from slight regard and undeserved disrespect came with the first exhibition of "The Pastel Society" at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1880. Pastel Painters like Mary Cassat and others from America and other nations forever silenced  the snobs with their masterworks and gained recognition at long last for Thiele's invention as a valid art medium. I am persuaded that history will repeat itself.  Like Pastels, I believe these wonderful new colored pencils and even Digital Realistic Art Media will one day receive the recognition they deserve as powerful mediums of artistic expression just as pastel paintings did. What is your definition of art? Have you thought about it? Mine is: "anything that makes you feel or think."      Consider dancing... it can be a little skip in the step or rise to the level of the incomparable Russian Ballet. Did you know that just the materials alone for a single oil painting cost up to a thousand dollars these days? Even paying the artist less than minimum wage no one but the super rich can afford them anymore. Something's got to give. Realistic paintings in oil have been highly prized for centuries and the appeal and following of realistic art is undiminished to this day. Oil paintings featuring Abstract Art and Realistic Art are generally the most treasured form of all the visual art media and with good reason. But snobbish art critics  favoring abstract art have declared  that realistic paintings, or illustrations are not art for a century. With so many representationalist  paintings by so many immortal master artists hanging in the Louvre, the Hermitage, and the British Museum and others I think the disrespect for realistic illustrators that dominated the 20th century is academically ridiculous as well as vain and intolerant, insisting theirs is the only valid opinion. What is your definition of Art? I believe almost any form of human expression can be raised to the level of "high art" especially  visual art and Realistic illustration...
The detail reveals Realistic art and abstract art combined	By my own definition of art, which is: "anything that makes you feel or think" most abstract paintings are not "real art" to me personally, because abstract paintings usually neither make me feel or think,  usually focusing obsessively on technique and avoiding any coherent content. I usually draw a complete blank mentally and emotionally when I look at them. In 1979 the Houston Metropolitan Museum of Art displayed a triptych of 3 giant   paintings they paid fifty thousand dollars for-  three blank white canvasses entitled "untitled". Then there was "The incredible new artistic Genius" with an I.Q. of 62 ...Coco the chimpanzee with his gala New York art exhibition...an elaborate prank played on the Snobbish American Art critics about a generation ago by research scientists in the field of primatology. Imagine how upset they were when he created one of his "ingenious masterpieces" right before their eyes. ( My Source for this is the Time Life Science Library volume entitled "The Primates". )
Art education has been almost completely removed from American Schools as a result of generations of this kind of  fabulous nonsense contributing to America's cultural illiteracy crisis. Now, the works of Leonardo Da Vinci, Michaelangelo, and other notables are being removed from school libraries.  After generations of this, most American college graduates today cannot name even one living visual artist, abstract or realistic. There is no way that mandating more math, requiring more reading, or scheduling more science will replace what we have lost as a culture.     What is your definition of Art? ~HDJ *****

Essay Two : The Rebirth of Realism

More thoughts on realistic art yesterday and today by the artist

Art History has entered a new era with the birth of Art Numérica, or digital art media in the 21st century. Artists never stop exploring with mediums. Artists have been developing techniques, experimenting with different tools since at least twenty- five thousand years ago, when the first artist picked up a charred stick and scratched a picture out on the wall of his cave. You'd think everything would have been tried by now, but it hasn't. Exploring new mediums this very day is just as exciting, just as full of freshness and newness as it ever was.

           Early abstract art  masters proved themselves as realistic artists before delving into realms of the intangible. They had to do this at that time to prove themselves because of the challenges they faced from the establishment for going against the status quo. In the latter part of the 20th century, realistic artists like HDJ were challenged to do abstract art to prove themselves as shown in the example above (Deirdre of the sorrows). Later realistic art training was abandoned in most schools and things like splattering paint in fits of rage  were deemed more than enough. By the end of the 20th century something as destructive and ridiculous as nailing a pack of cigarettes to a shoe was considered fine art but not realistic paintings. Fashions in art have often been as silly as fashions in ladies hats.  As the century drew to a close, many people had had enough. The realistic revolt was at hand. The rebirth of realism was fueled by the advent of the digital era. Now, for the first time in almost two centuries, an artist or illustrator could earn a decent living again with his realistic art. This is historic. Realistic art is not going to go away, especially now that photography has truly merged with traditional realistic visual art. Photography comes from the Greek words meaning "painting with light". Now with the advent of digital media the capability of realistic art has become almost limitless, truly, "painting with light". The merger of all the world's art forms to realize the potential of motion pictures has come now to still realistic art media. This website for example, on certain pages combines music, prose, poetry, photography and traditional realistic art media to create an experience beyond merely looking at realistic paintings.

         The twenty- first century is already seeing a new renaissance in the arts because of the world wide web. There has never been anything like it. Abstract art, computer art, photographic art, and realistic art are continuing to be separate schools of art but are also blending to create exciting new horizons. Although Digital art does offer completely new horizons to the artist in the 21st century it does not mean the end of our time honored art traditions. Instead, it offers additional ways to keep these traditions and schools of thought  fresh and alive.

~ HDJ

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FREE ART LESSONS  & PAID PERSONAL INSTRUCTION    Five pages of free art lessons are provided free of charge to aspiring artists. Click on Helen of Troy  for links to them. After you have seen them, if you would like to still learn more of his art techniques - personal instruction is available. Although portraiture is essential to quality realistic illustration, it is not the primary focus of our school, but rather to teach everything needed for you to produce good visual story telling art or dramatic illustrative portraits. Hence the name: The Brandywine School of ILLUSTRATIVE ART... Click on "Helen of Troy" for more...

( These lessons are jam packed with unpublished huge - easy to study 12x18 images by the artist)

All  art - paintings, pictures, & text  (c) 1993- 2008 Howard David Johnson All Rights Reserved

Thank You For Visiting the Asian Myths & Legends Art page of Howard David Johnson...

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Your business, letters & links are always welcome. 

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Look for more Asian myths and legends art - More Japanese Mythology - Korean Mythology - & Chinese Mythology  - Coming soon...