Paintings depicting the Dragon Boat Festival

Qu Yuan Divined How to Conduct Himself by Huang Yingchen, the Qing Dynasty. [file photo]

In the Qing Dynasty, Huang Yingchen was commissioned by Emperor Shunzhi to draw Qu Yuan Divined How to Conduct Himself.

In modern times, Fu Baoshi and Lu Yanshao also created such works. In the 1940s, Fu Baoshi began to draw portraits of Qu Yuan to commemorate his loyalty and literary achievements, and to inspire more people to struggle for China’s future. Fu’s Portrait of Qu Yuan, kept in the Palace Museum, shows how Qu Yuan behaved when he was banished, as described in Fisherman. Fu also drew pictures of Qu Yuan in the summer of 1942 and at the Dragon Boat Festival of 1947. In 2007, a portrait of Qu Yuan drawn by Lu Shaoyan was sold at the price of 1.05 million yuan.

For the Dragon Boat Festival, people also shoot arrows and hang portraits of Zhong Kui, a mythological figure who is the "king of the ghosts". According to The History in the Jin Dynasty - Ceremonies, on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, people would ride a horse, shoot arrows at willow branches and try to take the branches. In the Ming Dynasty, such games were popular among noblemen.

Special coverage: Your guide to the Dragon Boat Festival