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# The Origin of Shadow Puppets
- URL: https://www.jamesreeves.co/shadow/
- Published: 2020-06-30T11:36:00.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-15T03:50:11.000Z
- Description: Sometimes I find comfort in a two-thousand-year-old myth about a Chinese emperor.
- Author: James A. Reeves
- Tags: Art

Part of me still believes grief has an ending. I’m still caught off-guard by haunted dreams or disorienting moments of longing for the ones I’ve lost.

Sometimes I find comfort in a two-thousand-year-old myth about a Chinese emperor. Unable to bear the death of his beloved, Emperor Wu offered a reward to anyone who could bring her back to him. A wise man carefully cut out a silhouette of the departed woman from a piece of paper and displayed it behind a white cloth for the grieving emperor, who found comfort in the sight of her standing behind a curtain before a shining moon. This story from the Han dynasty not only describes the origin of shadow puppets, it’s a reminder that art can mitigate grief and perhaps even deny death.