Which dynasty did Dunhuang murals belong to?
Dunhuang frescoes include Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes, West Thousand Buddha Cave and Anxi Yulin Grottoes, with a total of 552 grottoes and murals of more than 50,000 square meters. It is the largest cave group in China and even in the world, with rich contents.
Dunhuang murals are the main part of Dunhuang art, with huge scale and exquisite skills. Dunhuang murals are rich in content. Like other religious arts, it is an art that describes the image, activities and relationship between God and man, in order to pin people's good wishes and appease people's hearts. Therefore, the style of mural painting is different from that of secular painting. However, any art originates from real life, and any art has its national tradition. Therefore, most of their forms are based on the common artistic language and expression skills, and they have a common national style. Also known as Thousand Buddha Cave. It is also one of the four ancient caves in China, and is listed as the world intangible cultural heritage.
Modeling features
There are gods (buddhas, bodhisattvas, etc.). ) and the vulgar images in Dunhuang murals (both from real life), but they are different in nature. From the modeling point of view, the image of laity is full of life and the characteristics of the times are more distinct; The image of the gods changes less, and there are more elements of imagination and exaggeration. In terms of clothing, laymen mostly wear Chinese clothes in the Central Plains, while immortals wear them abroad. The method of daubing is also different. Mediocre people often use the Central Plains daubing method, while immortals often use the Western concave-convex method. These are constantly changing with the times.
A problem closely related to modeling is deformation. Dunhuang murals inherit the deformation techniques of traditional painting and skillfully shape various figures, animals and plants. Different times, different aesthetics, different degrees and ways of deformation. In the early stage, the deformation degree is large, there are many romantic elements, and the image characteristics are distinct and prominent; After Sui and Tang Dynasties, there was less deformation, stronger three-dimensional sense and stronger realism.
There are generally two methods of deformation: one is exaggerated deformation, and the other is to make regular changes on the basis of the prototype of the character, that is, to lengthen it into a disaster. For example, the bodhisattva in the late Northern Wei Dynasty or the Western Wei Dynasty greatly increased the length of clothes, fingers and neck, exposed the bones on the edge, used the distance to eat grass, and the corners of her mouth were upturned, shaped like petals; After transformation, it has become a romantic and unique "showing bones and treating elephants". King Kong Lux tends to exaggerate horizontally, with thick limbs, short neck, round head, big belly and protruding eyes, emphasizing physical strength and superhuman strength. These two characters are the result of exaggeration.
Main categories
Buddha painting
As a religious art, it is the main part of murals, including all kinds of Buddha statues (III Buddha, VII Buddha, Sakyamuni Buddha, Duobao Buddha, Fairy Robber and Thousand Buddhas, etc. ); Bodhisattvas (Manjusri, Pu Xian, Guanyin, Shi Zhi, etc. ); Tianlong Babu (Heavenly King, Dragon King, Hag, Tian Fei, Asura, Goruda (Golden Winged Bird King), Kinnara (Lotte), Python God, etc. ). Most of these Buddha statues are painted in the statement. There are 933 talking pictures in the murals of Mogao Grottoes alone, and there are 12208 Buddha statues with different expressions.
Classic painting
Using painting, literature and other artistic forms to express profound Buddhist classics in an easy-to-understand way is called "Jingbian". Painting to express the classic content is called "painting in disguise", that is, changing painting; Those who use words and singing methods are called "bianwen".
theme
In the caves in the late Northern Wei Dynasty, there were mythical themes with Taoist thoughts. At the top of Cave 249 in the Western Wei Dynasty, in addition to the lotus algae well painted by the central government, an alchemist holding the banner of tortoise and turtle, followed by an enlightened beast with a dragon head, opened the way. Suzaku, Xuanwu, Qinglong and Baihu are distributed on all walls. Fei Lian fluttered his wings, and Lei Gong swung his arms and rolled the drum. The lightning flashed with an iron drill, and the rain teacher sprayed it, and it rained.
Portrait of supporters
The donor is a Buddhist and invests in the construction of grottoes. In order to show their devotion to Buddhism and to leave a name for future generations, they painted portraits of themselves, their families, relatives and handmaids in the cave when they opened it. These portraits are called provider portraits.
Decorative pattern painting
Colorful pattern painting is mainly used for the architectural decoration of grottoes, as well as the decoration of tables, crowns and utensils. Decorative patterns vary with the times and are ever-changing, with superb painting skills and rich imagination. Pattern painting mainly includes algae well pattern, rafter pattern, edge decoration pattern and so on.
Story painting
To attract the masses and publicize Buddhist scriptures and dharma, it is necessary to instill abstract and profound Buddhist classics into the masses in a simple and vivid form, inspire them and make them believe in it. As a result, a large number of story paintings were painted in the cave, which made the masses receive subtle education in the process of watching. The story painting is rich in content, touching in plot, full of life breath and attractive in charm. It can be mainly divided into five categories.
1, Buddhist story: mainly promoting the life story of Sakyamuni. Many of them are fairy tales and folklore of ancient India, which have been processed and modified by Buddhists for centuries and attached to Sakyamuni. Generally, there are many scenes of "elephants entering the womb" and "crossing the city at midnight". There are 87 Buddhist stories in Cave 290 (Northern Zhou Dynasty) in six horizontal volumes, drawn in sequential structure, depicting all the plots of Sakyamuni from birth to becoming a monk. Such a long and huge cartoon is rare in China's Buddhist story paintings.
2. Bunsen story painting: refers to vivid stories depicting all kinds of good deeds of Sakyamuni before his death and propagating "karma" and "penance and good deeds". It is also a popular theme in the early murals in Dunhuang, such as "Shame for feeding the tiger", "King Pi's remains give their lives to save pigeons", "Nine-colored deer give their lives to save the people" and "Xu Ge give their lives to serve their relatives". Although they are all branded with religion, they still maintain the true colors of myths, fairy tales and folk stories.
3. Karma Story Painting: This is the story of a Buddhist disciple, a good man and a woman, and a Sakyamuni sentient being. Different from Bunsen's story, Bunsen only tells the story of Sakyamuni before his death. Karma is about Buddhist disciples, good men and good women in past lives or this life. The main stories in the murals are "500 robbers become Buddhas", "Misha committed suicide by keeping the precepts" and "the good friend prince went to the sea to get treasure". The story is bizarre in content, tortuous in plot and quite dramatic.
4. Buddhist historical story paintings: refer to stories drawn according to historical records, including Buddhist holy places, induction stories, stories of eminent monks, auspicious images, and precept paintings. It contains historical figures and events and is an image of Buddhist historical materials. This kind of painting is mostly painted in cave niches, the top of tunnels and the corners of secondary places. However, there are also some paintings on the front wall, such as the map of Zhang Qian's mission to the western regions in Cave 323, the Buddha statue, and the Liu Sa in Cave 72.
5. Metaphorical story painting: This is the story that Sakyamuni listed when explaining Buddhism to Buddhist disciples and good men and women in a simple and easy-to-understand way. Most of these stories are fables and fairy tales from ancient India and Southeast Asia, which have been collected and recorded by Buddhists in Buddhist scriptures and have been preserved to this day. The concrete stories in Dunhuang murals include "Golden Elephant to Protect the Elephant" and "Golden Lion".
6. Painting of Tang Xuanzang's Buddhist Scriptures: In the Dunhuang frescoes of Xixia period, there are six paintings of Tang Xuanzang's Buddhist Scriptures, which are the stories of Tang Priest's Buddhist scriptures. Tang Priest and the Monkey King, who are similar to monkeys, are holding white horses. Most of them are not independent pictures, but interspersed with the changes of Guanyin and Pu Xian. [1] Later, after constant deduction, there was a journey to the West.
landscape
The landscape paintings in Dunhuang murals are all over the grottoes, with rich contents and various forms. Most of them are integrated with classic paintings and story paintings, which play a foil role. According to Buddhist scriptures, some describe the beautiful natural scenery of "Elysium" with mountains and rivers, birds' songs and flowers, which means that the scenery is realistic and the imagination is superb; Some are independent picture frames with mountains and rivers as the main body, such as 6 1 Cave Wutai Mountain Map.
In addition to the above seven categories, there are architectural paintings, utensils paintings, flower-and-bird paintings and animal paintings. The artistic value of Dunhuang murals is precious, which systematically reflects the artistic style and its inheritance and evolution in various periods from the aspects of structural layout, figure modeling, line drawing and color setting, as well as the historical face of the exchange and integration of Chinese and Western arts.
In addition to decorative patterns, the above-mentioned seven kinds of murals generally have plots, especially repainting and story painting, which reflect a lot of real social life, such as travel, banquet, interrogation, hunting, shaving and worshipping Buddha. Ruling class; Working people's farming, hunting, fishing, pottery making, iron smelting, slaughtering, cooking, building, begging, etc. ; There are also various social activities such as marriage, school, martial arts, singing and dancing, business trips, ethnic minorities, foreign envoys and so on. Therefore, Dunhuang Grottoes are not only a treasure house of human art, but also a treasure house of historical documents. The Mogao Grottoes is one of the most precious historical and cultural heritages in the world, with a large number of exquisite murals, countless vivid colored statues, and a large number of precious historical documents such as Buddhist scriptures and documents.