中国生肖
中国生肖：浏览李湘艺术网站的十二生肖资料。本页正文暂为英文，完整译文待补充。
Twelve small paintings, one for each year of the cycle — and in the corner of every one, the animal's name written the way it was written three thousand years ago, in the script the Shang diviners scratched into ox bone and turtle shell.
The Chinese zodiac — 生肖, shēngxiào, “born likeness” — gives every year an animal, and the animals run in a fixed cycle of twelve. Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, Pig, and then round to the Rat again. Your animal is the one that was standing at the year you were born, which is why it comes back to you every twelfth birthday.
It is older than a horoscope and used more casually than one. Asking someone their animal is the polite way to work out their age. The animal of the coming year goes on the New Year decorations, the red envelopes, the stamps and the shop windows, so a Dragon year looks different from a Rabbit year everywhere at once. And each animal carries a rough temperament — the Rat quick, the Ox steady, the Tiger unruly — which people invoke affectionately, and take about as seriously as a Western reader takes being a Libra.
Underneath the animals is the older machinery they were bolted onto: the twelve Earthly Branches, 地支, which divide the day as well as the year. Each animal owns two hours of the clock as well as one year in twelve — the Horse holds noon, the Rat holds midnight.
Horse 馬 / 马
A dark bay horse at full stretch across a golden ground, mane and tail blown back, in Tang-style tack — blue and gold straps, red tassels, a cinnabar saddlecloth over an embroidered green blanket of lotus flowers. The hero image of the collection.
Read the Horse →Which animal are you?
Pick the year you were born. A zodiac year begins at Lunar New Year, somewhere between 21 January and 20 February — so if your birthday falls before it, you belong to the animal before.
Every year, animal by animal — 1936 to 2043
| Rat 鼠 | 1936 · 1948 · 1960 · 1972 · 1984 · 1996 · 2008 · 2020 · 2032 |
|---|---|
| Ox 牛 | 1937 · 1949 · 1961 · 1973 · 1985 · 1997 · 2009 · 2021 · 2033 |
| Tiger 虎 | 1938 · 1950 · 1962 · 1974 · 1986 · 1998 · 2010 · 2022 · 2034 |
| Rabbit 兔 | 1939 · 1951 · 1963 · 1975 · 1987 · 1999 · 2011 · 2023 · 2035 |
| Dragon 龍 | 1940 · 1952 · 1964 · 1976 · 1988 · 2000 · 2012 · 2024 · 2036 |
| Snake 蛇 | 1941 · 1953 · 1965 · 1977 · 1989 · 2001 · 2013 · 2025 · 2037 |
| Horse 馬 | 1942 · 1954 · 1966 · 1978 · 1990 · 2002 · 2014 · 2026 · 2038 |
| Goat 羊 | 1943 · 1955 · 1967 · 1979 · 1991 · 2003 · 2015 · 2027 · 2039 |
| Monkey 猴 | 1944 · 1956 · 1968 · 1980 · 1992 · 2004 · 2016 · 2028 · 2040 |
| Rooster 雞 | 1945 · 1957 · 1969 · 1981 · 1993 · 2005 · 2017 · 2029 · 2041 |
| Dog 狗 | 1946 · 1958 · 1970 · 1982 · 1994 · 2006 · 2018 · 2030 · 2042 |
| Pig 豬 | 1947 · 1959 · 1971 · 1983 · 1995 · 2007 · 2019 · 2031 · 2043 |
All twelve, in order
The order was fixed, the story goes, by a race the Jade Emperor called across a river. Half of the twelve won their place by cheating, helping or stopping for lunch.
01 鼠
First across the river
02 牛
The one who carried the winner
03 虎
王 on the forehead
04 兔
The one in the moon
05 龍 / 龙
The only one that isn't real
06 蛇
The little dragon
07 馬 / 马
Noon, at full gallop
08 羊
The character inside 美
09 猴
Three generations in a heart
10 雞 / 鸡
The one that ends the night
11 狗
The one that is loyal anyway
12 豬 / 猪
Last, and in no hurry
甲骨文
Why the names look like that
Every one of the twelve carries a small character in a corner — top left, top right, twice in gold rather than ink. It is the animal's name, and it is not modern Chinese. It is 甲骨文, oracle-bone script: the earliest writing anyone has found in China, cut into ox shoulder blades and turtle plastrons at Anyang around 1200 BCE.
Those bones were divination tools. A Shang king asked a question — about a harvest, a birth, a hunt — a diviner touched a hot point to the bone until it cracked, and the answer was read in the crack and then carved beside it. The zodiac is a folk version of the same instinct: read a person by the year they arrived in. Writing the animals' names in the script of the oracle bones puts the two side by side.
It also puts the pictures back into the words. In oracle-bone script 馬 is still visibly a horse with a mane, 虎 a tiger with its jaws open, 羊 a head with two horns curling in, 犬 a dog with its tail over its back. The modern characters are the same drawings, worn smooth by three thousand years of writing them faster.
Two ways of painting an animal
Six of the twelve are painted from life and from affection — the rat up to its elbows in cheese and sausage, three generations of golden snub-nosed monkeys inside a magenta heart, a rooster and two hens with seven chicks in a spring meadow. They are warm, funny, and meant to be looked at closely.
The other six are not animals at all but objects: the ox, the ram and the dog are painted as Shang and Zhou ritual bronzes — 尊 vessels cast in animal form, with taotie spirals and thunder-pattern borders, sitting in a dark field of nothing. They are the same era as the script in the corner. Between the two registers the collection says the thing twice: here is the creature, and here is what three thousand years of ceremony made of it.
- 鼠
- Rat · 子 zǐ
- 牛
- Ox · 丑 chǒu
- 虎
- Tiger · 寅 yín
- 兔
- Rabbit · 卯 mǎo
- 龍
- Dragon · 辰 chén
- 蛇
- Snake · 巳 sì
- 馬
- Horse · 午 wǔ
- 羊
- Goat · 未 wèi
- 猴
- Monkey · 申 shēn
- 雞
- Rooster · 酉 yǒu
- 狗
- Dog · 戌 xū
- 豬
- Pig · 亥 hài
Questions
What is the writing in the corner of each painting?
The animal's name in oracle-bone script (甲骨文), the earliest known form of written Chinese, incised on ox scapulae and turtle shells during the Shang dynasty around 1200 BCE. Xiang Li writes each animal's name in the oldest form of its own character rather than the modern one.
Which animal is 2026?
2026 is a Horse year — 丙午, a Fire Horse. The cycle runs Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, Pig, and begins again every twelfth year at Lunar New Year rather than on 1 January.
Have these been exhibited?
Yes. The zodiac paintings were shown with the Chinese Empresses in Voices of Strength: Empresses and Zodiac Animals at the Newton Free Library in July 2026, and the collections have traveled together to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Worcester Art Museum for Lunar New Year.
Can I buy one?
The originals are watercolor and gouache on paper and are held by the studio — write to us about availability. Journals, wall pieces, mugs and bags printed from the paintings are in the shop, and the animal's own page lists what exists for it.
Is the goat a goat or a sheep?
The character is 羊, which covers both — and neither word is wrong. English-language calendars print Goat, Sheep and Ram interchangeably. Xiang Li painted a ram, horns curled, cast as a bronze vessel.
Give the year its animal
Canvas prints, scarves, puzzles and more — from $14.
Two full-color hardcovers — 217 empresses, 413 painted characters.
Questions? Write to xiangliart@gmail.com