#chenxiang looking like the spitting image of erlang shen at his age is so.......... like erlang and sansheng are identical twins but. yknow

[antidotefortheawkward-art]

沉香 chénxiāng, agarwood A type of wood commonly used for incense. Trees afflicted with heavy stress are highly preferred over their healthy counterparts, as it is their infected heartwood that provides agarwood's valued fragrance.

[ID: A portrait of Liu Chenxiang from the waist up, looking forward solemnly. He is holding a mountain-shaped incense burner which is emitting incense smoke. Where the smoke crosses his face, features of a young Erlang Shen are visible instead, including his Heavenly Eye. Behind Chenxiang is a split log of agarwood, the inside of which is infected and blackened. Where the incense smoke crosses the log is desaturated, making the log appear more like a mountain. The shadow of the log extends upwards and where it intersects with the smoke is colored like a 青绿山水 painting. Over the shadow is written “香炉墩 (Lit. Incense burner, Fig. Only son in the family)” from right-to-left in golden seal-script. A red stamp to the right of the text reads "宝莲灯 (Lotus Lantern)." End ID]

#my art #lotus lantern #chinese mythology #liu chenxiang #chen xiang #illustration #translations in image description #沉香你长的越来越像你舅舅。。。 #chenxiang looking like the spitting image of erlang shen at his age is so.......... like erlang and sansheng are identical twins but. yknow #the whole thing of chenxiang very literally repeating erlang's story near beat for beat #also the dynamics of lighting incense specifically as a demigod. #because you usually light incense to pray to a god. OR to pay respects to your ancestors. #tfw your ancestors are gods. tfw your other ancestors are humans and youre not supposed to pay respects to them #also not entirely relevant or that deep but. i like the symmetry of patriarch puti being sun wukong's sifu and chenxiang being swk's tudi #human with tree imagery (bodhi tree) and again human with tree imagery (agarwood)........ #also no i am not going too heavy on the mountain symbolism with the incense burner bc thats based on a historical artifact <3