The history of human civilization, especially the history of art, is not achieved overnight, no matter which continent it is, but has been revised and perfected by generations of people, and after thousands of years of precipitation, it has shown what we are currently seeing. Therefore, the excavation and research of art history is of great practical significance for us to understand the ideas, culture and experience of our predecessors.
The study of art history can not only allow us to summarize experience, learn from the progress of modern art history, but also have some works of art that can make us get surprises when learning.
As we all know, the art of mainland painting is broad and profound, and it started very early, and the ancestors have also left us countless painting wealth. Although many paintings have disappeared in the course of history, a large part has been left behind. Among them, there is an ancient painting from more than a thousand years ago, and after we enlarge it, we can actually find the same modern object. Let's take a look at it together today.
A brief introduction to the Five Hundred Arhats
The ancient famous painting we want to introduce today is the "Five Hundred Arhats" made in the Southern Song Dynasty, the author of this painting was the famous Buddha statue painter at that time, Zhou Jichang and Lin Tingjue, they just listen to the name of this painting is a huge project, before and after a total of ten years, a total of one hundred pictures, the content is five hundred arhat images.
"Five Hundred Arhats" has created many of the world's best, ranking first in the world in terms of quantity, content and production quality. This famous painting is based on the Song Dynasty in the eastern Ningbo region of Zhejiang, and depicts many Buddhist development times, classic stories, and the daily life scenes of monasteries at that time with Buddhist themes. The painting also includes the names of the givers in the temple at that time and the time when each picture was painted.
The Five Hundred Arhats vividly explains the historical facts of Ningbo as the "Cultural Capital of East Asia", and this hundred pictures also illustrate the fact that Buddhism has transformed into the Arhat faith. It is said that in 904 AD, the image of sixteen arhats appeared on the mountain of Qiantang Jiangdong Lake, and there were rumors of the apparitions of five hundred arhats in another place at the same time, so people changed their faith.
Therefore, during the Southern Song Dynasty, a presiding monk of the Hui'an Temple asked Zhou Jichang and Lin Tingjue, two famous Buddhist painters, to paint this famous "Five Hundred Arhats". Later, the painting was passed on by the senior monk to a Japanese monk from Toei, and twelve were later circulated to the United States.
History of painting
In the "Diagram of the Five Hundred Arhats", it is mainly the various classic stories of these five hundred arhats. For example, arhats meet in high mountains, cast spells in clouds, worshippers by mortal monks, the vague image of arhats in the clouds, arhats giving alms to the poor people of the world, feeding evil spirits, meditating in caves, and so on.
In addition, most of the paintings are daily figurative depictions of the real lives of the monks in the temple at that time. Many of them are the daily chanting, meditation, and fasting scenes of the monks in the temple, in addition to many images of yunyou monks, but more are divine, because these yunyou monks are wandering in the air and surrounded by bursts of Buddha's light.
Interestingly, when the author depicts these mortal monks, his technique is very realistic, their forms and expressions are different, some have obvious Indian Buddha characteristics, and some do have Hu characteristics. These monks are old, young, fat, and thin, and the actions of washing clothes and discussing Buddhist scriptures have their own characteristics, and even the images of ordinary laymen who eat and pray the Buddha at home.
The development of the Luohan faith in the mainland was not very late, nor did it exist during the Southern Song Dynasty, in fact, as early as the five generations or even the Tang Dynasty, it had matured. If we trace our roots back from Buddhist theory, the image of the Arhat should be the image of Hinayana Buddhism. In Hinayana Buddhism, the arhat is the representative of immortality, non-existence, and outside of samsara, and is the supreme state of the path of enlightenment.
Previously it was the image of the Sixteen Arhats, and later in the process of development there were eighteen Arhats. As for the belief in the five hundred arhats embodied in our "Five Hundred Arhat Diagrams", in the current popular words, it has developed from the previous niche culture or subculture to the mainstream Buddhist worship before and after the Northern Song Dynasty. During the Southern Song Dynasty, this belief was stronger, but there are not many written records of it.
Even in the story records of Buddhism itself, there is no specific explanation of the five hundred arhats, but more in the relevant Works of Japan. These two painters may not have heard of the deeds of the five hundred arhats at first, but it was only during the Southern Song Dynasty that this belief gradually became popular, so the senior monks of the Hui'an Temple invited the two masters out of the mountain, so this masterpiece is not unrelated to the change of the daily beliefs of the people.
The clash of ancient and modern elements
Every time an ancient painting appears in people's field of vision, it inevitably attracts countless eyes and many researchers, and the same is true of the Five Hundred Arhats. Since the first time this painting appeared in people's field of vision, the study of it has not stopped.
Painting experts, historians and archaeologists have conducted a comprehensive and multi-faceted analysis of the "Five Hundred Arhats", and when observing the original paintings in frames, researchers found that modern elements actually appeared in the "Five Hundred Arhats"! They found that the monk above was actually wearing flip-flops!
At first, many people did not believe it, some people even began to doubt the authenticity of the painting, and some people said, is the author of this painting traveling back? But then archaeologists and historians gave the answer, and the "flip-flops" on the picture were not the same thing as the small sandals we have now, that is, the "clogs shoes" that people wore.
One might ask, aren't clogs something invented by the Japanese? Why do chinese paintings appear? In fact, our country has long had the tradition of wearing clogs and shoes, but when Japan came to seek culture, it was brought with it by the way, and we did not have this tradition later, so few people know.
Clogs shoes can also be seen in various allusions to the mainland, in fact, as early as the Yao Shun period, the mainland had this tradition, it can be said that the mainland has at least three thousand years of history. Of course, there are different legends in later generations, according to the records in "Zhuangzi", when one of the five masters of the Spring and Autumn Period, Jin Wengong made clogs, so from the time calculation, it has a history of more than 2,000 years.
epilogue
In fact, paintings similar to the "Five Hundred Luohan Diagrams" are not uncommon in mainland China, but most of them are not as large as this painting, but the famous paintings such as "Qingming on the River" are also uncompromising in terms of the quality of works and the richness of content.
The picture comes from the network, if there is infringement, contact to delete!