Historical origin
There is a mountain in the East China Sea called Liubo Mountain, which is about 35,000 meters away from the coast. There is a wild animal on the mountain. It has no horns, only a hoof. Every time it appears, there is a storm. It shines with the light of the sun and moon, and its roar is deafening. That's called a real cow. Later, the Yellow Emperor got a genuine cow, made a drum from its skin and a drumstick from its bones. Drums travel thousands of miles to shock the enemy and conquer the world.
The influence of later generations
In the decoration of bronzes in the late Shang Dynasty and the Western Zhou Dynasty, the real dragon pattern is one of the main decorative patterns, and the image is mostly that the dragon opens its mouth and rolls its tail. The shape is suitable for the structural lines of bronze decorative surfaces, with straight lines as the main part and arcs as the auxiliary part, which has the aesthetic feeling of Gu Zhuo.
The dragon patterns on bronzes are usually called Kuiwen and Longkui patterns. In the works since the Song Dynasty, the reptilian objects on the bronzes are all called Kuiyi, which refers to the record of "Kuiyi Foot" in ancient books. In fact, an animal with one leg is a profile of a biped, so the word Kuiwen is not used, it is called dragon pattern or dragon pattern.