the china song dynasty bow on drawing

add a tang dynasty bow
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I note in these Song Dynasty images that they show hardly any string height from the grip.

I was always under the impression the low brace height in the Song illustrations was artist's error --- but I guess if it appears in two sources, it was likely a deliberate design choice in the real-life bows.

What kind of technique would you even use to shoot a bow with such a low brace height? Would the appropriate technique here be to spin the bow in the bow hand during release (i.e., Wang Ju style)?

we need a super video recorder how when string ejective the left hand "throw away" the bow and the bow back face to you or sky , if you hold the bow not "throw away", the string will hit your hand, but never i can got a good shoot when left hand moveing

I think it is important not to confuse what is probably an attempt at perspective with a diagrammatic representation of reality. The argument that the appearance of something in two places make it more likely to be an accurate representation is also flawed when you examine how paintings were composed at the time. Most paintings were actually copies at the level of detail of sections of other paintings. The repeated copying of paintings led to the gradual loss of detail or exaggeration of element due to the copyist not understanding what was originally painted. This is most obvious in the gradually loss of details in the generations of wood block prints. In technical illustrations, complex mechanisms were simplified and eventually replaced by clouds or other obfuscations.

It is clear from the wood block printed page that detail has been lost and there is no attempt at a correctly proportioned drawing. What images are is a means of identifying an object available to the reader. These are not engineering drawings meant for a technician to reconstruct the device nor a scientist to analyse it. What it does indicate is that the bow has a set back handle, short, strongly curved bending limbs and straight non-contact tips.

The paintings are showing a more complex type of image; the bodies of the horsemen are turned at the waist to present a three-quarters view. It would be logical to assume that the bows are not presented in true profile. If these were photographs, then there could be an argument for performing an analysis to determine to correct proportions of the bows. However, it is a painting from a culture whose traditions did not include rigid geometric perspective rendering. Chinese painting had several methods of implying perspective, but none of them are mathematically based. They are designed to provoke a response in the human mind to suggest depth, but they are not intended to be a point by point representation of reality.

The paintings are very important. As Jiao points out ,they show composite bows and crossbows carried by horsemen. They indicate how this parade was organised. They give rough relative dimensions of the bows and arrows and indicate that they were carried by hand in this parade. The colours of the various parts of the arrows and bows are shown in detail.

I think it is reasonable to assume that the brace height is close to that of a modern Korean bow and possibly the method of shooting was similar to how Korean bows are shot now. However, that is not certain for the reasons I have given above. It is possible that the brace height is not as low as that of modern Korean bows, but that the artist simply wanted to emphasise the set back in the handle and went further than reality would have needed. It is possible too that the fletching on the arrows was not as rounded as in the painting, but was exaggerated to make it more visible.