Keywords

1 Introduction

Zhuangzi has had a profound influence on Chinese culture. Familiar proverbs such as “a mantis attempting to stop a chariot”, “Zhuang Zhou dreams of a butterfly”, and “abandoning the sacrificial vessels for the saucepans”, among others, all originated from Zhuangzi, and there is no shortage of similar examples. However, due to the length of years, its difficult classical language is an obstacle even for many native Chinese speakers, giving rise to commentaries, references, and adaptations. Among the commentaries are Zhuangzi Commentary by Guo Xiang of the Western Jin Dynasty, Commentary on True Scripture of Southern Florescence by Cheng Xuanying of the Tang Dynasty, and Zhuangzi Modern Annotated Edition and Translation by Chen Guying in modern times. Zhuangzi has been referenced countless times. For example, the line “The immortals leave the world and do not look back, but in the world, life and death are like morning and night” from “Comments from a Visit to the City of Immortals” by Su Dongpo derives from the phrase “life and death are day and night” from “The Great Original Teacher” chapter of Zhuangzi. Similarly, the phrase “Who wakes up first from the great dream?” from Romance of the Three Kingdoms references the phrase “There will be a great awakening, and afterward it will be known that all was a great dream” from the “Making All Things Even” chapter of Zhuangzi. The story “Zhuang Zhou Drums on a Bowl and Attains the Great Dao” in Feng Menglong’s Stories to Caution the World is an adaptation of the line “beating on a drum and singing” from Zhuangzi. This story was later turned into numerous plays and movies.

However, in this age of digital multimedia, the cultural resources of a wide-ranging, profound, diverse, conceptually rich, and idiosyncratic work like Zhuangzi have yet to be fully tapped. Under these conditions, retracing how the abstract artistic elements of Zhuangzi have been transformed into concrete illustrations, and then into outstanding cultural products such as cartoon animation, is a path of inquiry worth pursuing.

At present, animated versions of Zhuangzi are relatively few. The best-known are Tsai Chih Chung’s Zhuangzi Says from 2004, the corporate anime xxxHOLiC: Shunmuki from 2010, and Zhuang Zhou Dreams of a Butterfly by the China Central Academy of Fine Arts from 2015. In general, the screen adaptations of the artistry of Zhuangzi have not yet reached their full potential. The present study employs the design model of “Poetic techniques of shape-spirit Transformation” proposed by Mo-Li Yeh in 2011 as its standard of judgment, undertaking a multi-faceted comparison of the successes and failures of these three two-dimensional (2D) works (illustrations). Based on an analysis of the successes and failures of the three works, the present study assembles a theory and produces a model for adapting the artistry of Zhuangzi featuring four ideal illustrations.

2 Zhuangzi and Related Visual Works

Zhuangzi’s surname was Zhou, and his courtesy name was Zixiu. He lived in the town of Meng in the state of Song. His year of birth is not known, but he probably lived at the same time as Mencius (372–289 BC), and worked as a supervisor of lacquer work in Meng. He lived in poverty, and made shoes in exchange for rice when he lacked money. In fact, he looked down on wealth, social status, fame, and power. The Historical Records state that King Wei of Chu once asked Zhuang Zhou to become a minister, but Zhuang Zhou replied: “I would rather amuse myself in a filthy ditch than be subject to the rules of the leader of a state. I will never take office, and will continue to enjoy my freedom.” He did his best to protect himself in turbulent times, to attain release, and to pursue spiritual freedom and ease. The dao that is ever-present in Zhuangzi’s philosophy represents the origin of the world and its essence, and also refers to the highest ideal in life. It is generally thought that Zhuangzi developed and innovated upon the philosophy of Laozi. However, Ch’ien Mu and Feng Youlan believe that in terms of the history of philosophy, Zhuangzi came before Laozi, and that he formed a critical link between pre-Qin philosophers and Daoists. The 33 chapters in his work Zhuangzi are separated into inner, outer, and miscellaneous chapters. It is generally believed that the inner chapters are the work of Zhuangzi, whereas the outer and miscellaneous chapters were written by disciples. Throughout Zhuangzi, allegories are abundant, which is why the work professes to be “nine-tenths allegory” in “Allegories”. Although there are relatively few animated versions of Zhuangzi, their number is considerable in comparison with those of other classical works, and the quality is high. Among these are comic books that have been adapted into works of animation, for instance, the adaptation of Tsai Chih Chung’s comic book Zhuangzi Says (2004), the adaptation of xxxHOLiC: Shunmuki by Japanese manga studio Clamp, and Xia Chong Guo by the studio Ink Man. There are also animated adaptations that are not based on comics, such as Zhuang Zhou Dreams of a Butterfly by the China Central Academy of Fine Arts and The Cowboy’s Flute by Shanghai Animation Film Studio. These works have all been widely praised. Zhuangzi Says in particular was appreciated by old and young alike, and turned into a three-dimensional (3D) version in 2010.

3 Poetic Techniques of Shape-Spirit Transformation

In the chapter “The World”, Zhuangzi says in his own work Zhuangzi that it “employs words to offer constant insight, with important quotations to communicate the truth, and an abundance of allegories.” As can be seen here, allegories occupy a key position in the artistry of Zhuangzi. Zhuangzi’s allegories display a magnanimous, peculiar imagination and a style of “wild ideas and an eccentric flow of thought” which is described in Generalization of Art/Generalization of Prose by Liu Xizai. The mysterious philosophy behind the allegories, while constituting an advantage for adaptations, also presents numerous challenges for the creation of a perfect adaptation. Chen et al. (2012) proposes investigating the sensory characteristics of “emotions,” “reason,” “events,” and “scenes” in the imagery and ideas of poetry, and using the attributes of sensory products to analyze four ideally designed products whose design concepts are based on said poetry. Although this model is highly reliable, and some aspects of it are praiseworthy, if used to adapt an expansive, unbridled work of classical Chinese prose such as Zhuangzi, the amount of work involved would be extraordinary. Comparatively speaking, the design model of “Poetic techniques of shape-spirit transformation”, which is present as “adapting the form and essence of poetry for design” in this paper, constructed by Yeh et al. (2011) in Applying Poetic Techniques of Shape-Spirit Transformation in Cultural Creative Design proves easier to use when applied to animated adaptations of the artistry of Zhuangzi. “Poetic techniques of shape-spirit transformation” are based on the poet’s state of mind as expressed through the poetry, and involve an investigation of the “compositional approach” and an integration of visual sensory activity and imagination as a designer would undertake to deeply penetrate the interior essence of the subject of analysis and assimilate the results, that is, to conduct an “analysis of the structure of meaning.” Then comes the process of “putting pen to paper,” as a method of specifically applying design adaptations, and “adapting the external forms and internal meanings of poetry,” as a method of actually determining related elements such as imagery, material quality, functions, emotions, etc. Finally, the design is put into practice in a “poetic cultural product.” This model can be separated into four concrete forms based on cause and effect, namely, “using form to depict form,” “using form to depict essence,” “attaining essence to depict form,” and “depending on essence and emitting essence,” that is, the four main models of “using concrete images to depict concrete images,” “transforming abstract images into concrete images,” “transforming concrete images into abstract images,” and “using abstract images to depict abstract images.” Although there are four main models, there are only two main elements, “form” and “essence.” When adapting the surface “things” in Zhuangzi as well as the “situations” behind them from text into imagery, simplifying the four main elements of “emotions,” “reason,” “events,” and “scenes” into the two main elements of “form” and “essence” not only reduces the number of complex procedures but also makes the train of thought easier to follow and puts greater stress on the focal points.

4 An Analysis of the 2D Structure of Current Zhuangzi Illustrations in Works of Animation

There is an extremely wide range of different illustrations in Zhuangzi, covering nearly every category of literary and commercial illustrations. Works of commercial illustration include animation storyboards, comic book design, and so on; this is the main multimedia area in which illustrations are applied. The Chinese word for “animation” is derived from the same word in English. In Latin, the word “animate” means “to make something become active.” All animation achieves the effect of movement by displaying static pictures in succession. Moreover, the word “cartoon” is generally used for humorous or satirical works adapted from political caricatures, and its original meaning refers to a type of 2D drawing technique. In the broad sense, animation includes film cartoons as well as animated films, and both adapt still pictures into moving pictures through a process of static images in motion.

Animation generally uses exaggeration and richly creative activity and language to win the audience’s appreciation. It does not rely on pure acting skill to brilliantly depict fantastical characters, and such a format seems more compatible with the stories of Zhuangzi than live-action film. In addition to this high degree of appropriateness, animation is also unique in that it has a consistent visual style, a rich array of colors, and a high degree of completeness. Therefore, the present study focuses on the 2D illustrated portions of the works of animation derived from three Zhuangzi stories, using the animation structure category chart in Application of Chuang-tzu 2D animation by Liu and Yeh (2015). Specifically, there are five main types of animation structures: theme and story, animation style, sound structure, static picture structure, and dynamic techniques. These models are used to conduct a comparative investigation of similarities, differences, successes, and failures in the current adaptation processes of the artistry of Zhuangzi. To put emphasis on key points, the present study deconstructs and analyzes three works of animation in detail, that is, the adaptation of Tsai Chih Chung’s comic Zhuangzi Says, the OVA adaptation of Clamp’s manga xxxHOLiC: Shunmuki, and the ink painting animation Zhuang Zhou Dreams of a Butterfly by the China Central Academy of Fine Arts. We have not analyzed the sound structure or dynamic techniques of three works of animation; we mainly analyzed the 2D illustration portions, specifically the theme and story, the illustration style, the static picture structure, and the appropriateness of the format for adapting stories from Zhuangzi. The study materials is the specific parts from three animations with the same subject that Zhuang Zhou dreams of a butterfly. The process of analysis is shown in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1.
figure 1

An analysis of the 2D structure of Zhuangzi animations (Yeh and Liu 2015)

Full size image

5 Investigation of Application to Illustrations

Through an analysis of the illustrations above, we can first identify some commonalities in the approaches of the three illustrations to adapt the spirit of Zhuangzi. First, there is a degree of elegance and ease in the lines of the character designs in every case, which serves to adapt the free and easy-going nature of Zhuangzi’s spiritual pursuits and his flamboyantly expansive writing style. Next, the characters are exaggerated and the designs are relatively simple: this is appropriate for a work of animation and is also in accordance with the eccentric, outlandish imagery of Zhuangzi. Additionally, in terms of composition, mid- to close-range perspectives are prevalent, and the compositions mainly use the golden ratio. The colors are relatively consistent, which serves to preserve the harmony of the images. Finally, when presenting conversations and philosophical details, the backgrounds tend to be empty or drawn in freehand, and such settings are used to place emphasis upon the storyline and the characters, or perhaps to express the fictional nature of the allegories.

The weakness of these generally successful attempts is that despite their capture of Zhuangzi’s free and easy-going nature, they overlook his magnificent prose and jocular style. The use of fixed settings to place limits on time and space represents the essence of Zhuangzi but neglects the form. In their attempts to represent the spirit of Zhuangzi’s Daoism, they neglected to represent the eccentricity and wildness of the Zhuangzi School.

The present study attempts to carry on the free and easy-going character of the 2D composition of these illustrations, as well as their temporal twists and turns and bold usage of composition, by applying Mo-Li Yeh’s design model of “Poetic Techniques of Shape-Spirit Transformation”, which adapts the “form” and “essence” of poetry, to some of the words and implications of Zhuangzi to create illustrations. Specifically, we aim to construct a more complete conceptual model of adapting the spirit of Zhuangzi by (1) adapting the original text of Zhuangzi using the four concrete methods of “using form to depict form,” “using form to depict essence,” “attaining essence to depict form,” and “depending on essence and emitting essence,” and (2) undergoing the two adaptation stages of “analysis of the structure of meaning” and “adapting the external forms and internal meanings of poetry” in each method to create illustrations. The process is shown in Fig. 2.

Fig. 2.
figure 2

The progress of adapting Zhuangzi to create illustrations (Yeh and Liu 2016)

Full size image

6 Conclusion

Qian Mu also states in his Comprehensive Study of Zhuangzi and Laozi that Zhuangzi’s prose “is just like a cup of water” and that “it is always flowing.” “But it is as if this cup of water is always changing. It takes on every sort of strange flavor, but still you can’t help but enjoy drinking it…” Zhuangzi is a fascinating piece of work that is greatly eccentric with a consistent vision. The present study has been guided by the design model of “Poetic techniques of shape-spirit transformation,” creating a series of illustrations derived from the text in an attempt to improve the currently existing illustrations. This study also has some limitations. Simple extractions of 2D illustrated images from works of animation take these images out of context, making it difficult to appreciate the 2D characteristics of the work of animation as a whole. However, to shed light on the themes in question, this study has tentatively extracted representative images, undertaking a general analysis of their composition as static pictures and discussing visual adaptations of Zhuangzi from the perspective of essence and form. In so doing, this study has presented an optimal point of view.