Chinese Paintings

Chinese Paintings Lotus Flower Meanings

The Chinese have always loved Chinese lotus flower paintings. These Chinese flowers are thought of as being like a gentleperson, who keeps themselves clean, alive and healthy in a dirty environment. Essentially the Chinese lotus flower represents creative power and purity amid adverse surroundings. It is also a symbol of the seventh month, summer. In China, there are many poems about the Chinese lotus flower, often describing how they come out of the dirty mud under the water and yet retain their pureness, freshness and beauty

An Old Chinese Poem:

"The leaves break the bandage of the green stem, stretch themselves and form a green pool with untidy edges. Now the flower comes from out of the vast surface of the water, just like a very beautiful woman coming gracefully from her bath"

Chinese poets also use lotus flowers to inspire people to continue striving through difficulties and to show their best part to the outside world, no matter how bad the circumstances may be. This is understood as being just like the lotus flower, bringing beauty and light from the murky darkness at the bottom of the pond

Another symbolic characteristic of the Chinese lotus flower leads from the observation that the plant's stalk is easy to bend in two, but is very hard to break because of its many strong sinuous fibres. Poets use this to represent a close unbreakable relationship between two lovers or the members within a family, showing that no matter how far away they might live nothing can really separate them in heart

In Buddhism the lotus flower symbolizes faithfulness. The golden lotus that is mentioned in Buddhist sutras has two meanings, one is the symbol for the achievement of enlightenment and the other points towards a real flower which is beyond our normal perception

The influence of a lotus flower in Chinese paintings is to open us up to beauty and light. A good Chinese lotus flower painting can act as a reminder of the miracle of beauty, light and life. This reminder, communicated on an emotional level, is said to aid both spiritual and practical understanding of Tao, the world and our place in it

View our collection of Chinese Lotus Flower Paintings here.