Legend has it that during the Tang Dynasty, there was an extremely famous painter named Zhang Shengxuan, who was especially good at drawing dragons. He once painted four dragons on the walls of Jinling Anle Temple, but none of them painted the dragon's eyes, so people asked why, and Zhang Sangxuan replied that if the dragon with eyes painted would fly away.
Of course, the people did not believe him, so they asked him to try to paint the dragon's eye. Zhang Monk couldn't do anything, so he swiped a few strokes and drew the eyes of two of the dragons, and as a result, a moment of thunder and lightning flashed on the wall, and the two dragons that were lit up flew away, while the dragons that did not have a finishing touch remained in place.
And this is where the idiom "finishing touches". If you pay attention to Guan Yu's statue, you will find that most of Guan Yu's statues are also closed eyes and never specially carved eyes, is this the sculptor is also afraid to carve the eyes of Guan Er ye, so that Guan Er Ye can come back to life?
The answer has something to do with the question itself, but there are many more reasons for it.
It was the way it was
First of all, in Guan Yu's own appearance, his eyes are not large. In the portrait of Guan Yu by the ancients, Guan Yu has a pair of very slender Dan Phoenix eyes, which look like they are not open and closed, making people unable to understand Guan Yu's thoughts, but also allowing him to maintain a "contemptuous" look at all times, which makes Guan Gong's majesty more majestic.
In the description of the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", it is also "Dan Phoenix Eyes and Crouching Silkworm Eyebrows", so in the artistic image of the past and the present, Guan Er Ye has always been narrow-eyed and long-bearded, and his eyes are cold, but he looks more oppressive.
Craftsmanship
The second reason is a shame to say. In fact, in this nearly two-thousand-year history, if you want to say that everyone has carved the second master into the shape of closed eyes, you may not believe it.
In fact, some people did try to carve Guan Gong open their eyes, but they would find that once Guan Gong opened his eyes, no matter how hard they worked, they could not show Guan Gong's killing spirit, and over time, Guan Gong's statue would no longer be able to try to open his eyes.
Killing spirit
The third reason is the result of the deification of Guan Yu. We all know that Guan Yu has the title of "Martial Saint" and has been the object of great reverence of everyone for thousands of years, and Guan Yu's various rumors have come into being, and one of them is that Guan Yu "will kill people when he opens his eyes".
For example, in the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", what can make Guan Yu really open his eyes is not several major battles.
Once, when the Eighteenth Route princes entered the capital to fight Dong Zhuo, the enemy general Hua Xiong could not be a single one, and even beheaded many generals of the coalition army, causing Guan Yu to open his eyes and ask for help, before going to battle, Cao Cao saw that Guan Yu's eyes were like killing stars, so he warmed a cup of wine for Guan Yu, but Guan Yu temporarily resigned, and after a few rounds of battle, he took Hua Xiong's first rank and returned to the camp to receive Cao Cao's wine, and the wine was still warm.
Another time he opened his eyes was in 200 AD, when Guan Yu was captured by Cao Cao and temporarily served under Cao Cao's account. At this time, after Cao Cao led an army to attack Yuan Shao's army, he directly attacked Yan Liangcheng. Yan Liang was superior in martial arts, rushing to kill on the battlefield, Guan Yu opened his eyes again, galloped on horseback, stabbed the general Yan Liang to death in one charge, and obtained his first rank.
In addition, in 219 AD, when Guan Yu flooded the Seventh Army, Guan Yu also opened his eyes, and once Guan Yu opened his eyes, he would take the life of the enemy general, and the killing spirit was extremely strong. Most of the statues are placed in the temple, or placed in the living room, and the killing atmosphere is too heavy to inevitably shock people.
Therefore, when the sculptor carved Guan Yu's portrait, he always let Guan Yu close his eyes. Artistically, guan yu with closed eyes has a more majestic charm, and the locked brow seems to be a narrow mountain pass of a volcano, once opened, it is followed by a magma that is scalding hot to the end of the world, so Guan Yu with closed eyes is the "orthodoxy" of Guan Yu's statue.