Quick Answer: What Do Bees Mean in Chinese Art?
A bee or wasp paired with a monkey can form a visual pun for bestowing the rank of marquis (封侯, fēnghóu). This was a way of wishing someone advancement. The insect contributes one sound and the monkey another. A bee in a flower study may have a different role.[1][2][3][4]
- Insect and monkey: Their names supply the sounds for a wish about rank.[1][2][3]
- Insect, monkey, magpie and deer: The extra creatures can extend the wish to include official income.[2][5]
- Bees at flowers: Flower and insect paintings can center on the encounter itself.[4]
The other figures in the design can give a small insect its meaning.[1][2][4]
On a small Qing dish, four creatures can carry an entire congratulatory phrase. In a tall painted landscape, one insect may be hard to find at first. In both cases, locating the animal it faces can change the way you read it.[1][2]
How the Bee and Monkey Make a Rank Pun
In the Chinese rebus tradition, a depicted thing can supply the sound of a word. Bee or wasp (蜂, fēng) sounds like the verb to confer (封, fēng). Monkey (猴, hóu) sounds like marquis (侯, hóu). Together the sounds evoke the conferral of a title, without the need to write the words on the painting.[1][2][3]
The rank belongs to the phrase. On an object made to express a wish, the pun can congratulate someone or express hope for advancement. The tree and the insects supply a plausible scene for the pun. A monkey on a horse gives an example of a related rank wish composed with a different set of visual cues.[1][2][3]
A Landscape With a Nearly Hidden Insect
Lan Meng’s Landscape with Figures, Bees and Monkeys is a 1712 painting in ink and color on silk. A pavilion and figures occupy part of the scene. A monkey hangs from a branch and looks toward a tiny insect. The collection title calls the insects bees, while the label describes the creature facing the monkey as a wasp. The pun turns on the sound assigned to the insect.[1]
In a hanging scroll attributed to Yan Hui, two gibbons attend to a cluster of fourteen slender-waisted wasps. One gibbon grips the trunk and the other hangs down from a bending branch. Their positions make the insects part of the scene even before a viewer recognizes the pun. The scroll brings gibbons into the familiar pairing of monkeys and insects.[3]
How Porcelain and Silver Add a Second Wish
A blue-and-white Qing dish, about 15 centimeters across, carries a monkey, bees, a magpie and a deer. The four creatures together give a wish for rank and salary (爵禄, juélù) and for the bestowal of a noble title. The sound of the Chinese name for deer helps express the income portion of the phrase. The insects work with the monkey within the broader design.[2]
On an early- to mid-seventeenth-century silver cup stand, a monkey reaches a stick toward a hive. A bee hovers under its arm. Other parts of the incised scene show a magpie, a deer and two scholars, one gesturing up toward the sun. The gesture contributes a wish that the good outcome will happen soon. The image is incised into the surface that supports the cup, so the person handling it could see the figures close up.[5]
When Bees Hover Over Flowers
An eighteenth-century painting on silk titled Bees Hovering Over Flowers draws attention to the insects and blossoms as a subject in their own right. The object was formerly attributed to Zhao Boju, a twelfth-century painter. The current catalogue dates the silk painting to the Qing period.[4]
Flowers alone give a viewer little basis for assigning the rank pun. Look for a companion animal, a title or an inscription before making a more specific reading. In a landscape, the monkey’s gaze may pick out the insect. In an album painting of flowers, hovering insects can suggest movement over an otherwise still cluster of blossoms.[1][4]
FAQs About Bee Symbolism in Chinese Art
Does the insect have to be a honeybee?
The documented pun works with a bee or wasp. A catalogue may call the insect a wasp even when the collection title uses bees.[1][3][5]
What does a bee mean without a monkey?
In a flower painting the insect can be part of the natural scene. The rank reading is strongest where a monkey and other details support the sound-based phrase.[1][2][4]
Fuentes
[1] Seattle Art Museum. Landscape with Figures, Bees and Monkeys by Lan Meng
[2] The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Plate with Monkey, Bees, Magpie, and Deer
[3] National Palace Museum. Gibbons Attributed to Yan Hui
[4] Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Asian Art. Bees Hovering Over Flowers
[5] Philadelphia Museum of Art. The Art of China: Lobed Cup Stand