Vinegar_tasters
Vinegar tasters
Traditional subject in Chinese painting
The Vinegar Tasters (三酸圖; 'three sours'; 嘗醋翁; 'vinegar-tasting', 'old men'; 嘗醋圖, 尝醋图) is a traditional[clarification needed] subject in Chinese painting, which later spread to other East Asian countries.
The allegorical image represents three elderly men tasting vinegar. The identity of the three men varies. Chinese versions often interpret the three men to be Su Shi, Huang Tingjian, and a monk named Foyin. Other variations depict the three men to the founders of China's major religious and philosophical traditions: Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism. The three men are dipping their fingers in a vat of vinegar and tasting it; one man reacts with a sour expression, one reacts with a bitter expression, and one reacts with a sweet expression. The three men are Confucius, Buddha, and Laozi, respectively. Each man's expression represents the predominant attitude of his philosophy: Confucianism saw life as sour, in need of rules to correct the degeneration of people; Buddhism saw life as bitter, dominated by pain and suffering due to the attachment to possessions and material desires; and Taoism saw life as sweet due to it being fundamentally perfect in its natural state. Another interpretation of the painting is that, since the three men are gathered around one vat of vinegar, the "three teachings" are one.