Bring the Painted Dragon to Life

by Putting in the Pupils of Its Eyes

Idiom: make the finishing point

Source: The Tang Dynasty Yanyuan Zhang ‘Sengyao Zhang’Famous Paintings through the Ages, Sengyao Zhang draws four dragons on the wall of the AnLe temple in Jinling. He does not draw their eyes. He said each time, “To point is to fly.”People think it is ridiculous so he is ordered to point eyes of a dragon. In a moment, broken by lightning, the dragon goes to the sky by a cloud, the rest with no eyes are still on the wall.

Application: The metaphor to drive home a point in the key place concisely in speaking or writing. Also the analogy to highlight the key in the whole.