Analysis of medicine paintings of fruit, vegetable and rice sections of Ben Cao Tu Jing

Abstract

Ben Cao Tu Jing is the earliest version of block-printed edition for herbals so far, with 933 medicinal paintings. In this paper, it analyzed the medicine paintings in the Fruit, Vegetable and Rice Sections of Ben Cao Tu Jing, as well as discussed the types of medicine paintings and relevant information when they were drawn. There are a total of 76 paintings in the fruits, vegetables and rice sections of Ben Cao Tu Jing, which can be divided into four types: broken branch paintings, ground paintings, rootless plant paintings and the whole plant with root paintings. The first three paintings were similar to the paintings of Tang and Song, and the paintings of the whole plant with root can be called the type of medicine paintings with Chinese characteristics created by Ben Cao Tu Jing. These four types of paintings had a profound impact on the later illustrations of medicinal materials, such as Lv Chan Yan Ben Cao, Jiu Huang Ben Cao, Ben Cao Pin Hui Jing Yao, Zhi Wen Ben Cao, Zhi Wu Ming Shi Tu Kao. The two types that had the greatest impact on later generations are the broken branch paintings and the whole plant with roots paintings, which had been inherited and developed in contemporary Chinese pharmacy books such as Zhong Yao Cai Pin Zhong Lun Shu and Zhong Hua Ben Cao. The paintings of the fruits, vegetables and rice sections are highly realistic and artistic, not only carrying the role of conveying medicinal knowledge, but also having unique aesthetic value. It can be inferred that the fruits, vegetables and rice sections had the participation of professional painters at least. In addition, through the highly consistent drawing styles of several sets of paintings, it is concluded that the paintings without place names were likely to be drawn uniformly by the editing team, and the local paintings may have been revised and improved by the editing team lately.