2021 marks the 70th anniversary of The Peaceful Liberation of Tibet and the 27th year of Shanghai's counterpart support for Shigatse. After three years of hard work, the Xuhui Art Museum in Shanghai has accumulated a large number of 13th-15th century mural essences in the Shigatse region of Tibet, and a special exhibition of murals entitled "Wonderful Images And Transformation into The Subtle" was exhibited.
In Gyantse, Shigatse, Baiju Temple is magnificent, and the auspicious Duomen Pagoda has given birth to the luxurious and elegant and calm "Gyantse School", which is the crown of Asia; in the Sakya Monastery, known as the "Second Dunhuang", there are countless treasures and cultural relics, and more than 3,000 exquisite murals cover a wide range of religious, historical, cultural and social life. By chance, curator Tang Liqing saw the murals in the Shigatse temple in Tibet and was deeply shocked. Tang Hao, director of xuhui art museum, had seen the prints of these murals in Britain before, and the cadres who went to Tibet with him told him, "These murals are in Xigaze, which is supported in Shanghai." Everything was made up of chance that led to this exhibition.
Through the exhibition, a time and space tunnel is built in the heart of Shanghai to reach the pinnacle of Tibetan murals in Baiju Monastery, Shalu Monastery and Sakya Monastery in Shigatse. This is a gift from the Tibetan plateau.
The pinnacle of Tibetan murals
Few people know that the "Tibet" of Tibet was actually a specific name for a region at the beginning of its appearance, that is, Shigatse.
Once the political and cultural center of Tibet, sit back and feel it, and you will find the depth of Nature, the richness of humanity, the ups and downs of history in Shigatse, and everything is quietly condensed in a series of murals. In the history of ancient Tibetan art, the murals of the 13th and 15th centuries in the Shigatse area have been hailed by scholars as "landmark painting masterpieces". Xuhui Art Museum spent nearly 3 years, repeatedly went to the Shigatse area for field investigations, flipped through millions of words of literature, and sorted out the remains of precious local murals.
"Why this exhibition?" Tang Hao told reporters, "The murals of the 13th and 15th centuries in Xigaze, Tibet, reached the peak of art, equivalent to the Renaissance in Europe, and can be said to be the highest level in Asia at that time." Of course, without the support of cadres aiding Tibet, we would not have been able to do such an exhibition. Because it is more than 4,000 meters above sea level and more than 5,000 kilometers away from Shanghai, it is not easy to make such an exhibition, especially for a small art museum like ours. The better thing is that we have done the Dunhuang Art Exhibition before, and this exhibition won the Best Excellent Exhibition Award of the Ministry of Culture, so we also have a little experience. ”
The exhibition takes the rheology of the mural style of the 13th to 15th centuries in the Shigatse area as the main axis, and takes the integration of Han Art Techniques and Pictorial Elements as the auxiliary axis, interpreting the painting process, composition, color, line and its changes of these ancient murals, etc., showing the process of Tibetan painting gradually maturing on the basis of absorbing a large amount of Han Art. Tang Hao said: "The 13th and 15th centuries were the peak of Tibetan mural art, and these artistic factors from the Western Regions, South Asia to the Central Plains were fused into Tibet's own artistic style, and its composition, proportions, mineral pigments, and ornaments were very special. ”
Sakya Monastery is very important in the history of Tibetan Buddhism, the history of Tibet and the history of China, and it ranks among the first batch of national key cultural relics protection units. The temple is extremely rich in cultural relics in terms of religion, history, architecture, sculpture and other aspects, and has the reputation of "second Dunhuang". A large mural in the exhibition hall is from Sakya Temple, telling the story of Liangzhou Huimeng.
What is shocking in the Sakya Monastery is that behind the Buddha statue, there are three walls of sutras, the shelves are about ten meters high, reaching the top of the temple, and the shelves are filled with tens of thousands of sutras wrapped in colored satin. The wall of scriptures is divided into 8 units from the bottom to the top, and more than 50 units from left to right vertically, forming a huge bookshelf. Many monasteries in Tibetan areas have walls of scriptures, but the scale of Sakya Monastery is the first. Sakya Monastery can be called the "Second Dunhuang" because of the accumulation of thousands of years of inheritance.
Shalu Monastery is located in the Shigatse region of Tibet, about thirty kilometers from the city of Shigatse, in a mountain pass on the side of the road from Shigatse to Gyantse. According to the history of the temple, Xialu Temple was founded in 1087 AD, equivalent to the second year of the Song Dynasty Zhezong Yuanyou. The founder's name is Jie Zun Jia Rao Qiongye. By 1320 AD, equivalent to the seventh year of Emperor Renzong of the Yuan Dynasty, Shalu Monastery invited Master Bhuton to preside over the temple, and since then established the Shalu school in Tibetan Buddhism. By the time of Emperor Huizong of Yuan in 1333, Master Bouton rebuilt the temple.
Tang Hao told reporters: "There is a corridor in the apse of Xialu Temple, and the corridor is full of murals, but because the indoor light is dim, even the monks in the temple do not know what these murals are painted." When the curatorial team of the art museum illuminated the walls with professional protective equipment, even the monks of Shalu Monastery were shocked and took out their mobile phones to take pictures. ”
The style of the murals of Shalu Temple is clean and bright, simple and beautiful. From the perspective of its stylistic origins, it was influenced by the art of the Central Plains in the Yuan Dynasty and the Buddhist arts of Nepal and India, respectively, and the influence of the art of the Central Plains inland was not only expressed in the architectural shape of the Xialu Temple, but also reflected in the shape of some characters such as the Four Heavenly Kings and the patterns of landscapes and pavilions. The green dragon and suzaku patterns of the Protector Shrine, the trees in the murals of the Five Patriarchs of Sakya (Gongganimbu, Sonam Zimo, Zaba Gyaltsen, Gongga Gyaltsen, and Ba Si Pa) in the Palace of the Protector of the Dharma, and the architectural styles in the murals in the cloister of the main hall are all works with obvious central plains characteristics.
Baiju Monastery is located in Gyantse County, Tibet. Shirakyu-ji Temple, meaning "Auspicious Wheel Katsuraku Daiji Temple". Originally built in the 15th century, Baiju Monastery is a temple where the three major sects of Tibetan Buddhism, Sakya, Kadam and Gelug, coexist.
The murals of Baiju Temple are very famous, and the themes expressed are very extensive, mainly including the two sutras of the Tantric Sect, the story of Buddhism and the story of Bunsen, etc., especially in the painting method, which is unique to many other temples in Tibet. The auspicious Duomen Pagoda in Baiju Monastery, also known as the "Great Pagoda of Liberation of 100,000 Seeing and Hearing", referred to as the "White Pagoda", is well preserved in Tibet so far. The most majestic and magnificent architectural treasures. It was built in 1414, took ten years and cost more than one million to complete. The tower is 9 stories high, 42.4 meters high, octagonal on all sides, with bright lines, unique style, solemn and stable. There are 20 Buddha halls on the bottom floor of the tower, the whole tower is large and small, layer by layer, there are 108 doors, 76 Buddhist halls, the lintel is decorated with exceptionally exquisite reliefs of elephants, lions and flying dragons, which contain various types of Buddha statues, a total of more than 100,000 Buddha statues and nearly a thousand murals, so it is also known as "100,000 stupas". There is also a small Buddhist hall in the middle of the pagoda bottle, and the lintels on all four sides are painted with the eyes of The 3-meter-long Lord Shiva. The statues in the tower are exquisite. The Xuhui Art Museum also set aside a special space on the second floor, restoring one of the 76 Buddhist halls of Baiju Temple.
The murals of Baiju Temple are beautifully coordinated and accurately proportioned, reflecting the proportions of the human body and the aesthetic characteristics of tibetan art. Except for a few bodhisattvas who still retain their slender bodies under the guidance of the early statue measurement classics, most of the figures, especially the bodies of high monks, arhats and Ming kings, and protector gods, are obviously Hidden: thick, strong, and full of tension. The figures are both shaped and divine, focusing on the revelation of the inner charm of the Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, Ming Kings and Lux, the Buddha emphasizes ethereal and quiet, the Bodhisattva emphasizes kindness and kindness, and the Ming King emphasizes roughness and perseverance. The use of lines and colors and their organic combination with each other is the main language of the mural modeling of Baiju Temple. The outline of the shape is usually outlined by iron wire drawing, which is accurate and concise and powerful; the backlight and clothing pattern are usually outlined by gossamer line drawing, which is exquisite and feminine. At the same time, the use of color blending to reflect the light and shade to the back and the high and near and the turn of the character's bones, the relaxation of the muscles, enhance the sense of volume of the shape and the sense of space of the picture, the color is bright and fierce, emphasizing the harmony and contrast between cold and warm tones, the blending level is rich and delicate, with a strong decorative style. According to the inscription of the murals of Baiju Temple, the murals of the pagoda are mainly created by artists from Houzang Lazi County, Kangma County, and Lhasa Nimu County. The Laduan painting style led by the Lazi painters was naïve and simple, free and exaggerated, and the Naining painting style and the Lhasa Nimu painting style headed by the Naining painters of Kangma County were organically integrated, gradually forming a painting style full of vitality and self-contained, becoming a representative work of the maturity of Tibetan Buddhist art in the 14th to 15th centuries, marking the gradual prosperity of Tibetan Buddhist art in the 15th century.
Meditate on this ultimate beauty
Although the exhibition uses exquisite mural pictures, it provides the audience with a rare opportunity to get up close and personal with the details of these murals. Although these monasteries are famous for their paintings, many of the masterpieces of frescoes are hidden in the corners, dimly lit, or inaccessible locations, making it difficult for viewers to see the details even when they are in the temple. Tang Hao said: "The preservation of these murals in the local area is very worrying, we also used some high-tech means to collect and shoot the murals, and at the same time did more than half a year of restoration work." It just so happens that Xuhui Art Museum has a strong design team, and we have made great efforts in this regard. ”
In the past three years, the team of Xuhui Art Museum has restored the images through various advanced technical means and displayed the Shigatse murals in front of the audience, creating a rare and wonderful experience.
In order to allow the audience to see more and more exquisite murals, Xuhui Art Museum has specially customized an album with a large folio, each page is 685mm×500mm, a total of 400 pages, square ridge hardcover. The entire atlas covers almost all the most representative murals from the 13th to 15th centuries in the Shigatse region of Tibet that have survived, and is an extremely rare collection of Tibetan murals in China with a large number of collections, true image records, and exquisite printing quality.
On the first floor of the exhibition hall, the organizers deliberately cut out a small area and created a "white box" to house this unique album. Spectators can enter by appointment and each person will have a viewing time of 5 minutes. The museum also created a "snow scene" in particular, listening to the sound of pigeons, winds, bells brought from Shigatse...
"Here, we restore a white atmosphere. Last year we went to Tibet to collect music, and he created music for more than 7 minutes. Tang Hao said.
When the golden shining relics of the snowy plateau are transformed into a rotating wheel of light between red and white; when the dazzling patterns on the exquisite murals are condensed in a kaleidoscope of dreamy space; under the guidance of the proverbs of the wise man, there is always a sentence that touches the softness of the heart...
In addition to statically displaying large-scale mural images, Xuhui Art Museum has specially built the second floor of the exhibition hall into a multi-dimensional art space with mechanical beauty. Led by five or six teachers, the students of the Digital Art Department of Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts formed a work camp and spent more than half a year to produce a multimedia installation artwork, and re-created the ancient murals through mural images, installation models, multimedia technology, etc.
In the center of the exhibition hall, a "hidden wheel" (an installation made using the principle of the early Fenach mirror) is divided into three layers, presenting a transparent futuristic style of red and white. As the viewer turns one of the layers, the animation of the murals looms in the slits of the Fenach mirror, and the corresponding murals appear on the walls of the entire space. In the interaction, the audience can change the structure of the work or break the original order of the work according to their own intentions, so that the mural art becomes a living body in a sense. With a series of illusory audio-visual effects around it, the audience is placed in a mysterious and real illusion, feeling the ultimate beauty brought by the endless murals. The audience can only passively watch the presentation of ancient art being broken, and the two-dimensional ancient murals are rejuvenated; each visitor feels the story of the murals in a multi-sensory atmosphere; in a good-looking, good-sounding, and fun experience, they feel the collision, resonance or inspiration of Tibetan mural art and current life, and modern thought.
From the romance under the plane trees, travel to the mystery of the snowy plateau. This winter, you may wish to put aside your worries for a while and walk into the Xuhui Art Museum to enjoy the colorful murals of the snowy plateau and feel the violent impact of ancient culture on the spirit. (Reporter He Yingyu) (The pictures in this article are all photos of the special exhibition of the mural "Wonderful Image Radiance and Transformation into The Subtle" mural)