Dunhuang murals are not only art, but also history, but also an indirect reflection of god and secular life.
The world-famous Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes are most notable for their murals. This is a world historical and cultural heritage declared by the United Nations. Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes, Xiqian Buddha Cave, Anxi Yulin Grottoes have a total of 552 grottoes, with more than 50,000 square meters of murals in the past, which is the largest number of grottoes in China and the world, and the content can be described as brilliant!
Today, let's take a look at the artistic beauty of Dunhuang murals.
The artistic style of Dunhuang murals concentrates the production methods and stylistic characteristics of traditional Chinese art, and in terms of formal style, it is the product of the organic combination of line drawing modeling, decorative composition, heavy color of workmanship, and writing of gods in shape.
Line drawing styling
Line drawing is the main means of Chinese calligraphy and painting art modeling, and dunhuang murals also inherit this modeling technique, making the image have a high degree of generalization. From the weaves, bird and animal patterns, geometric patterns, etc. in the faience pottery ornaments of the Neolithic Yangshao culture, the cloud gas patterns, dragon and phoenix patterns on the Bronze Ware of the Shang Zhou Dynasty, and then to the line drawings on the Western Han Dynasty paintings, we can see the inheritance and development of the lines in them. The Dunhuang murals inherit the depiction method of line drawing and show their own characteristics. In the process of more than a thousand years of development, the expressiveness of the line has become more and more abundant, and there are different forms of line drawing such as starting line, stereotyped line and decorative line for modeling, as well as iron line drawing, orchid leaf drawing, gossamer drawing, folding reed drawing, nail head rat tail drawing and other different forms of line drawing that are also negative artistic styles.
The line drawings in the Dunhuang murals of the Sui Dynasty inherited and developed the line drawing characteristics of the Wei and Jin Dynasties and the Southern and Northern Dynasties, laying a good foundation for the reform of Tang Dynasty painting and line drawing. On the basis of inheriting the painting techniques of the Wei and Jin Dynasties and the Southern and Northern Dynasties, the line drawing of the Tang Dynasty developed the charm, softness and rigidity of the line in the artistic conception, which made the painting more fascinating and new line drawing appeared. In the Dunhuang murals, the blue leaf depiction is the mainstay, and the iron line depiction, the string depiction, the flowing water depiction of the clouds and so on are also included. The characteristics of its line are: according to the needs of the personality image of the character, the color of the change of the style requirements of the flexible use of the line, that is, in a line drawing, there are changes in the thickness of the pen, line pen, and closing pen, in a painting or even in a person's modeling, there are also a variety of line drawings, reflecting the characteristics of the era of Tang Dynasty painting art.
Decorative composition
Composition is one of the main means of painting expression, the ancients called it "business position", decorative composition together with modeling, color constitutes the three main aspects of decorative painting, and decorative composition plays a decisive role. In terms of business layout, the decorative composition breaks through the limitations and constraints of the concept of time and space, and in the expression of the image of the picture, it is free to do as you please, freely, "within a few feet and look thousands of miles away, within inches and the strength of the debate", all of which cannot be done by realistic painting. The Dunhuang murals are impressive, and their composition plays a big role.
The decorative characteristics of the Dunhuang murals are prominently manifested in the orderliness and freedom of the arrangement of things in the picture. The orderliness of the composition is manifested in the use of balanced, symmetrical and central composition forms in the picture. The balanced composition makes the "force" of the interaction of various forms of the picture balanced and contrasting, making people feel comfortable and therefore visually pleasing. But to make the picture balanced, you need a certain skill. The Dunhuang murals have many independent painting formats, but most of them form a complete theme together with some sculptures in the caves. However, within the field of view we have reached, whether it is the whole painting around the subject or some parts that describe the main plot, the balanced form in it makes people feel very comfortable. For example, "Nirvana Diagram" (259 Cave Sui), "Teaching The Sayings of the Scriptures" (280 Cave Sui), "Sumati Female Origin" and so on.
Dunhuang murals have a free view of time and space, emphasizing subjective performance, and are not limited by time, place and nature in composition. It is different from the performance of the reproduction of the authenticity of the painting, but according to the domination of the expression intention, with the overall rhythm and emotional artistic conception as the starting point, arbitrarily moving the viewpoint in a picture, not sticking to what is seen at one time and one place, so that the content of the painting can be freely switched according to the needs of the conception, thus expanding the performance space of the picture, it is this objective natural subjectivization, the idealized artistic concept of subjective consciousness, breaking the natural order of time and space, breaking through the constraints of focus perspective on time, space and place in the performance. The mural forms a composition form with unique aesthetic value and visual feeling in composition.
Heavy pen color
From the very beginning, Chinese painting has paid attention to color, whether it is the contrast between ink and red on faience pottery, the intersection of red and green on lacquer painting, or the colorful colors on paint painting, all of which show the characteristics of heavy color. The color of the image in the Dunhuang murals is mainly in accordance with the standard of "coloring with the class", and is given heavy color, so that the picture appears brilliant, bright, heavy and warm, and at the same time achieves the unity of color on a picture. Dunhuang murals attach great importance to the color effect of pleasing the public. For example, the murals of the Sui Dynasty are decorated with gold in delicacy to make the picture shine; Tang Dynasty murals are five-colored, pay attention to the decorative role of color itself, and on the basis of coloring and coloring, they create "stacked halo" and "green stacked halo method". For example, the image of Guanyin Bodhisattva on the middle side of the middle of the south wall of Cave 57 of the Early Tang Dynasty is "Amitabha Buddha Dharma". This statue of the bodhisattva, wearing a crown of Buddha, slightly tilted, long eyebrows, plump nose and cherry lips, expression conveying the spirit. Its crown ornaments, ornaments, and arms are all painted with asphalt and gold. The face is colored, the skin seems to have elasticity, and the body shape is otherworldly, just like a real-life feminine, fashionable, graceful and gorgeous Tang Dynasty beauty painting, which is actually a fine work of the early Tang Dynasty murals.
In the Dunhuang murals, coloring with categories can also be understood as coloring with emotion and coloring at will, and this color with subjective intention also has symbolic significance, which plays a role in religious indoctrination by strengthening the content in the mural and the symbolism of the religious figures in the painting.
God is written in form
Writing god in shape is the highest criterion for the creation and criticism of ancient Chinese painting, which is also reflected in the Dunhuang murals, no matter what kind of subject matter, what kind of characters, are to show the inner activities of the theme, so the line drawing and color use of Dunhuang murals are to achieve the ultimate goal of "writing god in shape". The every move of the mural characters has all the elements of conveying the gods, such as facial expressions, gaze, relationship between people, people and the environment, etc., and the content is very extensive. The style of the times reflected in the human face shape is the era style of the historical aesthetic condensed on the face of the character.
Dunhuang murals, like other paintings, are first of all image, and their images are mostly feitian female paintings, Buddhist Bunsen stories of Buddha statues, story paintings, traditional national mythological themes and portraits of donors. Ancient Buddha paintings, which have no original form themselves, do not have models like Western painters, and can be repeatedly modified and posed until the final drawing is accurate. Chinese painters can only express themselves if they have a deep understanding of the form, genre and content. This image is the shape in the mind of the painter, that is, the shape of the intention. The flying sky of Dunhuang is the essence of Chinese plastic arts, and its ethereal and feminine posture, or rising, or swooping, or flipping, has different forms and endless changes. Coupled with the fluttering of the skirt dance belt and the decoration of clouds and flying flowers, the beauty of the plump muscles of the flying sky. This is precisely the artistic characteristics, aesthetic tastes and national spirit of the Chinese. This is different from the Western painting of the person flying and painting wings on the body, which is a unique expression of Chinese artists to art. It is a unique sense of modeling in traditional Chinese culture and spiritual connotation, and its momentum, rhythm, interest and mood are all manifestations of Chinese culture in the depths of Chinese artists' hearts, and are also the result of a kind of cognition of the artist's soul.