照貓畫虎 Using a cat to draw a tiger
照貓畫虎(猫画) zhào māo huà hǔ
Lit: Using a cat to draw a tiger
Fig: To capture the form but not the spirit of the original. Uninspired imitation.
A lovely proverb. Here’s the origin (according to dubious online sources, but this is the best I’ve got so far, it’s not very interesting or credible):
In the waning years of the Ming dynasty (17th century), in the city of Penglai (蓬莱城) in Chengzhou prefecture (登州府) there was a famous painter who loved the story Outlaws of the Marsh (水浒传). He painted the heroes of the story, the warriors of Liangshan (梁山的好汉), but before he could paint the last he was struck down with a severe illness.
He’d left Wu Song till last because Wu Song is synonymous with the story of killing a tiger bare-handed, and this painter had never seen a tiger. Breathing his last he called out to his apprentice, and made him promise he would complete the painting, but to do so he must go into the mountains and see what a real tiger looks like. So saying he died.
Just as his master told him, he scoured the mountain but could find no tigers. He met a monk and told him of his mission, the monk laughed and said, ‘That’s a difficult task, can’t you just paint a cat? A cat and a tiger look the same.’
When the apprentice protested a cat is too small, the monk told him just to paint it bigger, so that’s what he did, and then hung the completed paintings – the one hundred and eight heroes of Liang mountain – complete with Wu Song fighting the tiger. The series was praised by men of learning, except for the last which was criticised for being just a picture of a cat posing as a tiger.
Note that in the Chinese text I got this from, the following was used as a synonym for 照貓畫虎:
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