Evolution from ancient Chinese legends to contemporary arts and designs in sky and space

Abstract

Sky is the area above the Earth in which the clouds, the Moon, the Sun, and the stars can be seen. It means the region consists of the atmosphere and outer space seen from the Earth. In the ancient time, people only knew “sky” instead of “inner space” and “outer space”, and they always dreamed travelling to the celestial object nearest to the Earth, the Moon. Traditionally, it is the same globally, the Chinese people respect the Earth, the Moon and the Sun with adorations. Therefore, there were many ancient Chinese legends about the sky and space. In this paper, five ancient Chinese legends related to the sky and space are described at first: the story of sky lantern (天燈), the story of Kuafu (夸父), the story of Chang E (嫦娥), the story of ancient Chinese astronaut Wan Fu (萬戶), and the story of Nüwa (女媧) who patched up the sky. Then, three contemporary arts and designs related to the current space explorations are introduced for comparisons: the Museum of the Moon, the worldwide tour of the Earth model Gaia, and the Chinese Suzhou embroideries of Sun spots and Horsehead nebula. Through the presentations, it is very interesting to see the addition to each other's splendour in the ancient mythologies and the modern space arts.