The Evolution of the Iconography of the "Eight Immortals" Motif: From Written Tradition to the Decoration of Ming and Qing Dynasty Porcelain

This article analyzes the "Eight Immortals" motif, which played an important role in late imperial Chinese culture. It explores its cultural significance within the context of porcelain decoration, as well as the methods of depiction. This research covers the Ming and Qing dynasties from 1368 to 1912. The study is based on a comparison of various sources, including philosophical and religious Daoist texts, as well as poetry and drama. Their influence on porcelain compositions is traced, reflecting changes in the depiction of the saints. A clear shift from multi-figure compositions to simplified ornamental schemes is noticeable. This applies primarily to the ornamentation of the "Hidden Eight Immortals." In this ornamentation, the meaning of the motif is conveyed through the objects and attributes characteristic of the figures. The methodological basis of the study consists of an iconographic analysis based on E. Panofsky's three-level model, formal-stylistic analysis, and comparative-typological and semiotic approaches applied to the study of materials from museum catalogs and digitized collections of porcelain. The scientific novelty of the study lies in its examination of the "Eight Immortals" motif as a holistic system of transition from literary narrative to stable types of ornamental depiction and in the interpretation of the "hidden eight immortals" as a form of iconographic reduction. The study demonstrated that the depiction of the "Eight Immortals" motif is based on a consistent set of attributes used by artists and their compositional arrangement. This reflects the traditions of the canonical Taoist literary foundation, allowing for unmistakable recognition of the characters. A transition from multi-figure scenes to ornamentation is also identified. This process is associated with the imperial court's desire to standardize the design of decorative and applied art objects. This resulted in the emergence of the "Hidden Eight Immortals" motif.