Sung Standards

[vexillia]

Any pictorial references online or commercial offerings?

Asking for a friend.  Honest. 😉

[Duncan Head]

This Wikimedia search result gives you all the illustrations from a Song Imperial procession scroll. More standards than you could shake a stick at - particularly this scene.

Also this painting.

From my Slingshot article on Chinese dynastic colours:

Some Song-dynasty Confucian thinkers were inclined to reject the whole Five Elements theory that underlay the choice of colours. The statesman and historian Ouyang Xiu wrote that it was "a fool's theory"; "It is the concern of calendarians and wizards, and absolutely fallacious to say that the ascending of an emperor must depend on this alternation of Phases". But others upheld the theory, so in its first year the Song was officially declared to belong to the phase or element of Fire, and this association remained in place until the end of the dynasty. Gao quotes a Ming Dynasty source, the Ming Shilu, which explicitly states that the Song used red flags. There is a magnificent eleventh-century scroll painting of a Northern Song imperial procession which shows dozens of flags in a variety of colours. Red is the commonest colour among these, but the scroll is an excellent example of the wide variety of flag colours that might be used alongside each other.

[vexillia]

Thanks Duncan (on behalf of my friend).

All he needs now is some suitable central images (not into hand painting): the basic shape of the flag is easy enough to create.

[nikgaukroger]

Found this one some time ago - can't recall where though.

[vexillia]

Excellent.  Thanks Nik.

[vexillia]

Also this painting.

After a quick bit of hackery I have the attached.   Free to use just add your own steamers.

[vexillia]

I trying to work out an easy way to draw (electronically) the scolloped edges of all the other standards.  Any help appreciated.