*Article* **On the Differences between Han Rhapsodies and Han Paintings in Their Portrayal of the Queen Mother of the West and Their Religious Significance**

**Xiaoyang Wang 1,\* and Shixiao Wang 2**

	- **\*** Correspondence: 101011372@seu.edu.cn

**Abstract:** This paper argues that there exist two Queen Mothers of the West (Xiwangmu) in the Han era (206 BC–AD 220): one worshipped as a goddess of longevity and immortality by people from the upper class; the other worshipped by the ordinary people as a seemingly omnipotent deity with divine power over both the immortal world and the mortal world. This argumen<sup>t</sup> is based on a thorough comparative investigation of the surviving corpus of Han rhapsodies (*fu*) and Han paintings, the two major genres of art that give form to her cult in the Han period.

**Keywords:** the Queen Mother of the West (Xiwangmu); Han rhapsody (*fu*); Han paintings; Hantomb stone reliefs; the Wuliang Shrine
