The land and water paintings of Pilu Temple and their artistic characteristics
Water-land painting is a kind of religious painting in ancient China, which was hung and used by Buddhism and Taoism when they held water-land dharma meetings. Due to the different production techniques and materials, water and land paintings are mainly divided into murals and scroll paintings. The painting method of land and water painting is inherited from Dunhuang frescoes, and mainly adopts the traditional meticulous figure painting method in China. The modeling, marking and coloring of figures have high artistic skills, which is a valuable legacy of meticulous figure painting in China. The content of land and water paintings generally depicts the stories of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, including heaven, earth and hell. All the gods, buddhas and immortals of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, such as the buddhas and bodhisattvas in Buddhism, the respected king of the Ming Dynasty and the protector Wei Tuo, etc. The sun, moon and stars, three officials and emperors, wind, rain, thunder and lightning in Taoism. There are also portraits of Confucian emperors, concubines, generals and soldiers, chaste women and martyrs. Therefore, land and water painting has certain practical significance. Land and water paintings are both religious paintings and folk cultural relics. A complete land and water painting is a social hologram composed of heaven, earth and people. The images and characters preserved in land and water paintings are of great value to the study of Buddhist history, the integration of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, the study of folk beliefs, the study of ancient Chinese costumes and the study of China art history, especially providing direct reference for the reading and interpretation of fasting, praying for blessings and copying scriptures, and becoming valuable materials for the study of art, history and religion in the art, cultural relics and religious circles.
Pilu Temple in Shijiazhuang is an ancient temple of China Buddhism and Lin Ji, located in Shangjing Village, Dubei Township, northwest suburb of Shijiazhuang City, Hebei Province. It was built in the 8th century AD during the Tianbao period of the Tang Dynasty, with a history of 1200 years. There have been many damages and repairs in the past dynasties. The water and land paintings of Pilu Temple are important water and land paintings in the form of murals in China. They are the most famous religious murals in China, which are as famous as those in Dunhuang in Gansu, fahai temple in Beijing and Yongle Palace in Shaanxi. The other three paintings only depict the content of a certain Sect, and only the painting of Pilu Temple is a combination of Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism and three religions, with the same figure, which is spectacular and magnificent. There are more than 200 square meters of land and water paintings in the front and back halls of Pilu Temple, which are rich in content and numerous in figures, nearly twice as much as the famous mural Yuan Chaotu in Sanqing Hall of Yongle Palace. Its composition, line drawing, color setting, characterization and other aspects have reached a high level, with high artistic value, which is of great value to the study of social life, customs and ancient art in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties. Wang Chaowen, a critic of modern literature,
The four walls of the front hall of Pilu Temple, the Sakyamuni Hall, are painted with land and water paintings of about 83 square meters, including the China folklore "civet cats for princes", as well as Buddhist stories in China and Taoist gods. There are portraits of "Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea" painted on the east and west walls of the temple, and the characters are lifelike. It can be seen that its characters, customs and contents are quite different from the common Indian Buddhist stories. It is painted on the wall in the form of a cartoon, full of plot and interest. At the same time, these Buddhist stories are drawn together with China folk customs, which fully embodies the exchange and integration of foreign culture and China local folk culture. The drawing level of the front hall of Pilu Temple is not as good as that of the back hall, and the preservation is not complete enough. The Pilu Temple in the back hall is the main hall in the temple, and the Buddha Pilu Zena of Buddhism (which means light in Indian, so the temple is named Pilu Temple) is enshrined on the central Buddha platform. On both sides of the Pilu Buddha statue are stone buddhas carved with fragrant flowers. The front of the fan wall is painted with two King Kong, and the back is painted with six Guanyin statues. The water and land paintings on the four walls of Pilu Temple *** 122 square meters, with 508 figures. The lower statues are about one meter high, and the upper and middle statues are successively lower, mostly larger, and each one has an inscription.
Although the water and land paintings of Pilu Temple were painted by folk painters in Ming Dynasty, the techniques were all taken from Tang and Song Dynasties, which was the same as Dunhuang murals. Many famous painters in history participated in mural creation, such as Gu Kaizhi, Yan and Wu Daozi. During the Song and Yuan Dynasties, China mainly engaged in and inherited China's meticulous figure paintings from folk painters, who painted murals and water and land paintings for monasteries. Most of them are devout religious believers, and they are meticulous in technology. At the same time, they integrate their own feelings about the objects depicted. They drew lessons from the traditional brushwork of China figure painting with lines as the bone by Gu Kaizhi, Yan, Wu Daozi and other senior masters, and combined with their rich imagination, created these exquisite water and land paintings. The land and water paintings of Pilu Temple have three main characteristics:
One is the integration of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism: the characters on the screen have different shapes and blend into one, forming a general rhythm and rhythm. But they are a group of 30 to 50 people, independent of each other, forming a self-reliant, diverse and self-sufficient pattern. Each character has moral and legendary stories, forming the mural art of the integration of the three religions. The water and land paintings were basically finalized in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, and there were more than 20 paintings of one class/kloc-0. The water and land paintings of Pilu Temple just met the number of basic stereotypes. The north wall of Pilu Hall is 2.8 meters high and 3.95 meters wide. The content is mainly Buddhism, and the paintings are gods centered on Brahma and Emperor Shi. There are more than 20 Taoist and Buddhist figures 120, such as the top ten Ming kings, the earth division, Brahma, Tianlong Babu, Four Heavenly Kings and Jade Emperor. There are more than 40 paintings on the west wall, including the Emperor of the Arctic, the Four Crossing Lakes, the God of Thunder and Lightning, the God of Mountains and Rivers, the God of Flowers and Trees, the God of Dragons, etc., and the true monarch who worships Ning and protects the country, the figure 140. The east and west walls are 2.8 meters high and 7.6 meters wide, and the murals are mainly Taoism. The east wall is painted with figures above * * * 138, such as Emperor Xiandi of Antarctica, Emperor Fusang, Emperor Tianxuan, Bodhisattva, Dongyue, Zhongyue, Nanyue, Five Dragons of the Four Seas, Ten Kings of the Earth, and Gui Mu. The southeast and southwest walls are Buddhist figures, while the northeast and northwest walls are Confucian figures. Each set of numbers has a legend. The height and width of the south wall are the same as those of the east and west walls, mainly depicting secular figures. On the east side, there are more than 80 maps showing the way of the late King and Bodhisattva, the map of martyrs who died for the country, and the map of 9600 fairs. On the west side, there are more than 60 portraits of the ghost king, the land of the city god, the empresses of ancient emperors and wives and daughters of ancient sages. The murals in the temple are the confluence of Buddhism, Buddhism and Taoism, which is rare elsewhere, and fully embodies the profound historical and cultural heritage and broad tolerance of the Chinese nation for thousands of years. Although these paintings are religious, they can still see the shadow of real life, and many places directly depict the image of working people.
Secondly, it is beautiful in shape and rich in line drawing: the painting style of Pilu Temple's land and water paintings inherits the traditional painting method of China's ancient meticulous figure painting, with natural lines, colorful characters, vivid images and clear priorities. Different from the orderly arrangement of "Yuan Chao Tu" in Yongle Palace, the water and land paintings of Pilu Temple divide the whole wall into more than 100 small-scale combinations, and use symmetrical techniques to orderly arrange more than 500 groups of murals and more than 500 emperors and immortals. Each group is separated by spiral clouds of purple, stone green and light ochre. Patterned clouds can not only adjust the picture, but also help to set off the theme. This overall layout makes people feel rich in content, outstanding in image and vivid in plot. Each group can be a wonderful figure painting set independently, but the top, bottom, left and right are interrelated, cautious and ingenious.
The use of lines is a major feature of China's paintings. Water and land painting belongs to traditional meticulous figure painting, and tick marks are very important. The skill of line drawing in the land and water paintings of Pilu Temple is profound, which successfully depicts the movements, expressions and psychological states of different characters in different scenes, and the images are real and vivid, which has made new development on the basis of inheriting the excellent tradition of line drawing in Tang and Song Dynasties. Starting from the actual needs of the object, the painter skillfully uses the changes of line rhythm, reality and rigidity to portray the characters vividly. It gives people a sense of soul and life, and the content and texture of objects are also very good. The characters' clothing lines are elegant and smart, the lines are smooth and rigid, the charm is vivid, elegant and natural, and the expression technique is extremely mature, reaching the artistic realm of both form and spirit.
Third, the color of the picture is rich and harmonious: the colors used in the land and water paintings are very elegant, mostly mineral pigments and metal pigments, including azurite, stone green, mica, ochre, gold foil and silver foil. All materials are chemically stable. These pigments have good stability and long storage time, and will not fade even after thousands of years, and can keep the bright colors of the picture for a long time. Therefore, although the water and land paintings of Pilu Temple have gone through hundreds of years, the water and land paintings adopt the traditional heavy color filling method, with stone green and vermilion as the keynote, and achieve harmony from strong contrast. The colors are rich and gorgeous, the lines are chic and smooth, and the characters are vivid. Land and water paintings also use a lot of techniques to make the characters have a strong three-dimensional sense, and the whole mural looks gorgeous and impressive. Each group of characters in the picture is separated by three-color spiral auspicious clouds, and the patterned clouds not only adjust the picture, but also help to set off the theme.
These painting characteristics of the land and water paintings of Pilu Temple not only reflect the superb painting art level in Ming Dynasty, but also have high historical and artistic value. At the same time, it reflects from one side that the so-called folk paintings of the Ming Dynasty were all painted by craftsmen, which is the witness of the ancient Chinese working people creating history, culture and art in obscurity in real life.
The land and water paintings of Pilu Temple provide important materials for studying the art history of China. The introduction of Buddhism into China brought new themes and styles to China's fine arts, especially promoted the development of China's figure painting. In China, the content of figure painting in past dynasties was mainly Taoism, supplemented by story painting and genre painting. However, after the Tang Dynasty, literati paintings with freehand brushwork appeared. Most people who inherit China's meticulous figure painting are folk painters who draw religious paintings, and the powder of folk painters is passed down from generation to generation. We can study the techniques of ancient meticulous figure painting in China from the land and water paintings, and get the rough prototype of figure painting created by ancient masters. In the land and water paintings of Pilu Temple, we can not only see the techniques of figure painting and landscape painting, but also see many folk customs. On the premise of serving religion, mural painters painted the social customs at that time into their paintings, which provided vivid historical materials for the study of modern people. More than 500 buddhas, gods and immortals in the land and water paintings of Pilu Temple are enshrined by ordinary people in China, from which we can study the folk customs and belief psychology of China people. In addition to the portraits of Buddha, gods and immortals, ancient painters also inherited the samples of previous painters. The secular costumes of emperors and subjects were described according to the costume system of the society at that time, which provided concrete image data for the study of ancient Chinese costumes.
It can be seen that the land and water painting is an art that serves the religious content, and has dual functions of religion and art. The land and water painting of Pilu Temple is a precious heritage of China's religious mural art, a treasure house of traditional culture and the essence of national painting art. The content of the integration of the three religions in the land and water painting of Pilu Temple reflects the religious development at that time, and its artistic characteristics reflect that the religious painting of Ming Dynasty is a very important field compared with the literati painting at that time. Compared with the previous religious paintings, its subject matter is more extensive, and its modeling and color performance are more mature.