In 1996, a number of important portrait stones were excavated from the Tombs of the Eastern Han Dynasty of Shenmu Dabaodang in Shaanxi Province, which attracted the attention of many scholars. I was interested in a detail of the portrait on the lower lintel of the outer door of Tomb 16. The portrait is inscribed with multiple historical stories, and the movements of the characters revolve around three pillars, which, strangely, are not straight and upright, but euphemistic snakes, and the edges on both sides are irregular wavy lines that repeat up and down, and there are several small curves within the contour lines, such as clouds of water (Fig. 1, 2) [1]. It is counterintuitive that the columns that play a supporting load role in the building should be shaped in such a way.
Figure 1 Portrait of the tomb door of Tomb No. 16 of the Eastern Han Dynasty of The Great Baodang of Shaanxi Shenmu
Figure 2 Portrait of the lintel of Tomb No. 16 of the Eastern Han Dynasty of The Great Baodang of Shaanxi Shenmu Dabaodang
After the carving, the portrait of Dabaodang is painted, and the details are particularly clear, while most of the objects seen in the portrait stones of northern Shaanxi before only see a silhouette silhouette, which cannot be compared. The picture of Tomb No. 16 can be divided into three parts, and the excavation report points out that in the center of the picture is the story of Jing Kexing's assassination of King Yingzheng of Qin, which is undoubtedly meaningful. Regarding a group of characters at the right end, the report proposes two explanations, one saying that it was sent by Prince Dan Yi of Yan before Jing Ke stabbed Qin[2], and the other said that Lin Xiangru was like a complete Bibi return to Zhao. The former judgment is based on the integrity of the lintel portrait, and the report interprets the characters at the left end of the picture as part of the story of Jing Ke's assassination of the King of Qin, so that the entire picture becomes a continuous sequence from right to left. However, in light of other findings, the latter opinion is more reliable. The left end of a column is half leaning on the frame of the picture, next to two people talking, the storyline is not very clear.
Why are the pillars in the portrait of Dabaodang bent? As can be seen from the discussion below, this peculiar form does not come from the literature related to the story, nor is it different from the images of the same subject matter in other regions.
Han Dynasty portrait stones with the title of JingKe's Assassination of the King of Qin have been found several times, distributed in Shandong, Zhejiang, Sichuan and other regions[3], the most famous of which are three cases of the Eastern Han Wu Clan Tomb In Jiaxiang, Shandong, which are found on the west wall of the Wuliang Ancestral Hall (Fig. 3), the west side of the small niche on the back wall of the front stone chamber, and the west side of the small niche on the back wall of the left stone chamber.[4] The book "Jin Shi Suo" by the Qing dynasty Feng Yunpeng and Feng Yunhu compares the portrait and title with the "Biography of the Assassins in History", and the content of the picture is described and examined in detail. The author points out that the Wuliang Ancestral Hall "draws Jing Ke to be pointed straight, Wuyang Zhen is angry, and the King of Qin is walking around the pillar, all with a sense of spirit." There is a blade in its pillar, and the so-called 'king of Qin with a dagger, not in the middle, in the middle of the tong pillar' is also" [5]. The portrait of the lintel of Tomb No. 16 of Dabaodang is not titled, but compared with the image materials such as the Wuliang Temple, it is not difficult to determine the theme of the story.
Figure 3 Portrait of the King of Qin in the Eastern Han Dynasty of Jiaxiang, Shandong (151) at the Wuliang Ancestral Hall
It is worth noting that the report does not mention relevant discoveries in other regions, but again cites the records of the Assassin Chronicles as evidence, which seems to be more convincing than other archaeological findings. However, the complication is that the literature is not monolithic, in addition to the "Records of History", the story of Jing Ke's assassination of the King of Qin is also found in the "Warring States Policy And Yan Ce II" compiled by Liu Xiang at the end of the Western Han Dynasty, the "Record of the Three Qins" between the Eastern Han Dynasty and the Wei and Jin Dynasties, and the "Yan Danzi" written between the Han and Sui Dynasties. Sima Qian said at the end of the "Assassin Biography": "The world's words Jingke, which are called the order of Prince Dan, 'Heavenly Rain Millet, Ma Shengjiao' are also too much." He also said that Jing Ke hurt the King of Qin, but neither of them was also true. The first Gongsun Jigong, Dong Sheng and Xia Wuyou, who knew what was going on, were yu Daozhi. [6] From this, it can be seen that during the Western Han Dynasty, this story had many different theories in the folk [7]. Tai Shi Gong's statement, referring to xia Wuhe, a physician of the Qin King who had experienced the past, should be more reliable.
The purpose of the "Records of History" is to "become a family"[8], and after the book is completed, "the famous mountain of Tibet, the deputy in the Capital Division, and the sage and gentleman of later generations".[9] Because "right and wrong are quite absurd to the saints, the Dao Dao is first Yellow Old and then the Six Classics, the Preamble Ranger retires from the priesthood and enters the adulterous male, and the Shu Cargo Breeder is snobbish and shameful and poor"[10], which conflicts with the ideas upheld by the imperial court, so the book was not widely circulated in the two Han Dynasties. The portrait stone craftsmen are not necessarily from the hands of historians, but are more likely to be circulating folk legends, or, in addition to the literature and oral system, there are also pictorial copies circulating everywhere, such as the person holding the jingke waist in the picture, that is, it is not contained in the literature, but is found in the portraits of Shandong, Sichuan, and northern Shaanxi.[11] Therefore, in addition to reference documents, art history research needs to pay more attention to the comparison of image materials. The purpose of the comparison is not only to discuss what the portrait represents, but also to observe how it behaves.
Tomb No. 16 of Dabaodang and the portrait of the King of Qin in Wuliang Ancestral Hall both select the moment when Jing Ke throws the dagger at the Qin King, and "compresses several plots that occur successively at different points in time in the same picture"[12], and its basic elements such as Jing Ke, Qin Wang, Qin Wuyang (Wuliang Ancestral Hall list titled "Qin Wuyang"), Fan Yu," and dagger are all the same. On the other hand, the difference between the two is also obvious, in addition to the differences in shape and carving techniques, there are also some differences in the details of the content, such as the King of Qin holding a jade bi in the portrait of the Wu Clan Temple,[13] while holding a sword in the portrait of Dabaodang, in addition, the difference in the shape of the pillar is also remarkable: the pillar of the Wuliang Ancestral Hall is upright, and the pillar in the Tomb No. 16 of the Great Baodang is bent and returned.
The "Records of History" records that the pillars of the Qin Palace are "copper pillars". The use of copper as a column may be related to the grade of the building. Another possibility is that the copper is hard, and the thrown dagger "middle copper pillar" can highlight the strength of Jingke, so the copper pillar is not excluded as a literary technique. In the picture, the relationship between the dagger and the pillar is not only "medium", but also "wear", which further strengthens the huge force of Jing Ke and the tension of the atmosphere. The curved pillars seen in Tomb 16 of Dabaodang cannot be found in the literature and in other regional images.
The pillars around tomb 16 are also curved. In the portrait of Zhao at the right end, there is a man on each side of the pillar, and the man with the right body turned back holds a jade bi in his right hand, which should be similar to Lin Xiang, who is preparing to "crush the head and bi in the pillar", opposite the pillar is King Qin Zhao, and a waiter behind him stands with a halberd. This story is found in the Chronicle of Lian Po Lin (史史廉伯麟相列傳), which is also a story of a duel with the King of Qin that took place around the pillar. The portrait with the inscription of The Complete Bi Gui Zhao is relatively rare in other regions, and there is an example on the third floor of the back wall of the Wuliang Ancestral Hall in Jiaxiang, Shandong (Fig. 4)[15], with the inscription "King of Qin", "Lin Xiangru, Zhao Chenye, Feng Bi Yu Qin", the latter of which is inscribed on the pillar in the picture, the upper part of the pillar is broken, but it can still be seen that it is upright and upright, which is different from what Dabaodang saw.
Figure 4 In the first year (151) of the Eastern Han Dynasty of Jiaxiang, Shandong, the Wuliang Ancestral Hall lin resembled a portrait of Zhao
So, where did the curved pillar in the portrait of Dabaodang come from? I can write the conclusion first: the column on the lintel is actually influenced by the shape of the Xianshan Mountain in the portrait stone of northern Shaanxi. Next, the discussion in this article is not limited to arguing this point, but more importantly, observing and analyzing the complex relationship between image content and form behind this phenomenon.
One
The known portrait of the King of Jingke with a curved pillar is only found in northern Shaanxi, and another example was unearthed in Suide (Figure 5). Like the portrait of Tomb No. 16 of Dabaodang, Suide Yishi is also part of the lintel of the tomb door, and the story of Jingke's assassination of the King of Qin is located in the middle of the picture, except for a waiter with a halberd on the left, the rest of the characters are the same as those seen in Tomb No. 16 of Dabaodang. Some scholars have pointed out that the production of portrait stones in northern Shaanxi has used a lot of templates[17], and there will also be painting manuscripts, which may be the reason for the fact that the same subject portraits in different tombs are basically the same.
Figure 5 Portrait of the lintel of the Eastern Han Tomb in Suide, Shaanxi
Compared with the Jingke Assassination of the King of Qin, the portraits of The Completed Bigui Zhao are more common in northern Shaanxi, such as the three lintels of the tomb gate of Suide Forty Shops (Fig. 6)[18], the banner on the south wall of the front chamber of the Suide Yanjiacha Tomb (Fig. 7)[19], the remnants of Suide Hejiawan [20], a lintel or banner collected by Suide in 1977[21], and the banner on the north wall of the front room of the No. 7 tomb of Mizhiguanzhuang (Fig. 8)[22]. In the above-mentioned portraits, the story of the return of bibi to Zhao is in the center of the picture, which is different from the portrait of the same theme on the lintel of Tomb No. 16 of Dabaodang, which is partial to a corner, but coincides with the location of the story of the King of Qin in Jingke.
Figure 6 Portrait of the lintel of the Eastern Han Tomb of Suide, Shaanxi Province
Figure 7 Portrait of the banner on the south wall of the front room of the Eastern Han Tomb of Suide Yanjiacha in Shaanxi Province
Figure 8 Portrait of the lintel of tomb No. 7 of the Eastern Han Dynasty in Mizhiguanzhuang, Shaanxi
Looking at the above-mentioned lintel or the portraits of King Jingke and Zhao Ofi on the banner of the tomb wall, we can find a phenomenon that there is a story with a pillar in the center of the picture. This is a commonality in the form of the picture, and our analysis can start from this commonality.
There is also a pillar in the center of the lintel of Tomb No. 9 of Theodome Daihodang, but this pillar is not curved. The upright pillar divides the painting into two parts, the right part depicts the hunting scene and the left part depicts a bicycle ride, neither of which has a thematic connection to the pillar (Fig. 9). That is to say, the pillar only serves to divide the picture in form. This inspired me to put forward the hypothesis that a pillar was needed in the center of the lintel first, rather than a specific story such as Jing Ke's assassination of the King of Qin or The Completion of BiGui Zhao.
Figure 9 Portrait of the lintel of tomb No. 9 of the Eastern Han Dynasty of The Great Baodang of Shaanxi Shenmu
The lintel of the northern Shaanxi portrait stone tomb and the banner of the tomb wall are a long scroll-type picture, suitable for showing the large scene of human activities or elk animals, especially travel, hunting and other themes, this horizontally unfolded picture guides the viewer's gaze to scan left and right, which can enhance the dynamic sense of the picture. There are many forms of composition of this kind of horizontal portrait, an example of Tomb No. 3 of Mizhiguanzhuang (Fig. 10)[24] is a kind of connected composition, the picture from right to left is a continuous and uninterrupted whole; the lintel of Tomb No. 9 of Dabaodang, which is spaced by pillars, can be called a middle-divisional composition, which can express two kinds of content at the same time, increasing the utilization rate of the picture space.
Figure 10 Portrait of the lintel of tomb No. 3 of the Eastern Han Dynasty in Mizhiguanzhuang, Shaanxi
The composition of the middle division requires the introduction of a "line" that divides the overly wide painting into two parts, left and right. Structurally, the line only needs to have a geometric form. However, a simple line may be too monotonous and blunt, and in the portrait of Tomb No. 9 in Dabaodang, the craftsmen developed the "line" slightly to form an upright pillar. This is an important step - in addition to meeting the requirements of the "line" in form, the pillar also has a specific "image", which can be placed into a specific scene, constitute a specific content, and obtain a specific meaning, so that the structure of the picture begins to deviate from the original theme.
Next, the craftsmen expanded in both form and content along this direction, and the stories related to the pillars of Jing Ke and the King of Qin and the Complete Bi Gui Zhao were added. In form, a "line" is expanded into a "face", and the role of this "face" is no longer limited to dividing the picture, and its width is equal to the picture of the left and right parts, and even evolves into the core of the picture. In the Suide portrait (see Figure 5), the story of Jing Ke stabbing the King of Qin is flanked by knights reflexively shooting tigers or bears, symmetrical to the left and right, making the central assassin story the focal point of the picture. That is to say, the structure of the picture has undergone an important change at this time, from the middle division composition to the centripetal composition.
At the same time, the craftsmen may have also considered the content of the story, such as Xing Yitian noting that in the portrait of the lintel of Tomb No. 16 of Shenmu Dabaodang, both the stories of Jing Ke's assassination of the King of Qin and the complete Bigui Zhao are related to the King of Qin, although they are not the same King of Qin. Further, both stories also portray the King of Qin as a negative character. We may be able to discuss the meaning of the story of Jing Ke's assassination of the King of Qin and the return of Zhao from multiple angles according to the theories and methods of iconography, for example, to regard the story as an image with an indoctrinating function, and thus to discuss the political and moral ideals of the tomb owner, the bereaved family, or the craftsman; or to see the story as a symbolic image, the King of Qin can be interpreted as a representative of some evil force in the underground world, and the religious significance of attacking the King of Qin is to protect the peace of the deceased underground. This kind of imagination is fascinating, but the problem is that it ignores the agency of the image itself and only sees the image as a tool to express some moral or religious idea. I think it is more important to discuss the unique way in which images express these ideas. So, next, we will continue to observe the change in the form of the picture.
In addition to the pillars, the craftsmen could also take other "faces" to divide the picture, such as the portrait of Tomb No. 6 of DaBaodang with a house in the center (Fig. 11). Columns are only the components of a building, while a house is a complete building. Due to the unique width and stability of this "face", the picture is again converted to a centripetal composition.
Figure 11 Portrait of the tomb door of The Eastern Han Dynasty No. 6 of the Shenmu Dabaodang in Shaanxi
These distinctive schemes may have been invented by different craftsmen at first, or by the same craftsman at different times. In some examples, the same and different schemes can also be combined to produce a more complex picture. For example, if three stories related to the pillar appear in Tomb No. 16 of Dabaodang at the same time, it can be seen that the same scheme is repeated three times on one screen, so that the role of the pillar splitting screen has become very weak. There is also a two-story pavilion in the center of the lintel of another tomb in Suideyanjiacha, with character dialogues carved on the upper level and a pillar in the lower center, flanked by dogs and sheep (Fig. 12). Two different schemes of columns and houses are blended together. (Note that the pillars of this building also stage the story of the Metamorphosis.) In the portrait stone discovered in 1975 by Suide Forty Shop, craftsmen combine the two schemes of house and pillar, which includes a two-story pavilion built on a high platform and the story of the return of the house to Zhao. The pavilion contains multiple rectangles, which have a stronger stability and blocky feel, so they occupy a central position, and the folding play of the complete Bibi Zhao has to be moved to the side of the pavilion (Fig. 13).
Figure 12 Portrait of the Eastern Han Tomb of Suide Yanjiacha in Shaanxi Province
Figure 13 Portrait of the Tomb of the Eastern Han Dynasty in Suide, Shaanxi Province
What is more complicated is that the craftsman will even break up the original character relationship and flexibly make new combinations, so that the original tight storyline and picture composition will go out of their way, resulting in some unreasonable pictures. For example, in the two portraits of Yang Mengyuan's tomb lintel and the back wall of the front room in the eighth year (96) of Suide Sujia Yongyuan, the image of Lin Xiangru holding a jade bi was cut out of the original story and mixed with some other male and female characters, carriages and horses, and animals (Figures 14, 15) [29], the old story no longer existed, and the characters who maintained their original posture had to stage a new play of Qin Qiong in the Guan Gong War.
Figure 14 Portrait of Yang Mengyuan's tomb lintel in the eighth year (96) of the Eastern Han Dynasty in Suide, Shaanxi Province
Figure 15 Portrait of the banner on the front wall of Yang Mengyuan's tomb in the eighth year (96) of the Eastern Han Dynasty in Suide, Shaanxi Province
The templates used in the creation of portrait stones in northern Shaanxi are often based on individual portraits or animals, and when used, there is often a great deal of arbitrariness[30], which may explain why this phenomenon of "disassembly" and "combination" occurs. Or, the bereaved didn't care what story was portrayed, as long as there were some dazzling pictures that were enough to comfort the deceased and show that they were filial piety.
Two
As a layman in Western art history, I was puzzled as to why many paintings titled The Annunciation around the Middle Ages and the Renaissance had a colonnade in the center. On the one hand, the dynamics and angles of the characters echo each other, striving for the unity of the picture; on the other hand, the straight pillars rigidly divide the Virgin and the Angel in two different spaces (Figure 16). I found the answer in Daniel Arasse's book: The pillar is one of the most famous symbols of Jesus (Columna est Christus). [32] Jesus does not appear as a human figure in the picture, and it is difficult to reconcile with the narrative structure formed by the Virgin and the Angels. However, this pillar is at the heart of the picture from the level of meaning. Arras notes that Francesco del Cossa (1435-1477) solved this problem to a great extent in his own unique way, by adjusting the perspective of the picture, changing the left and right lines of the Virgin and the Angel to a diagonal relationship, and placing the pillar between the two in the depth of field (Fig. 17). This weakens the structure of the plane binary separation, and also brings the pillar into the narrative, and the integrity of the picture is greatly enhanced.
Fig. 16 Fra Angelico, north gallery of the Convent of San Marco in Florence, Italy, painting The Annunciation (c. 1438)
Figure 17 Francesco del Cossa,1470-1472, collection of the Dresden Museum of Fine Arts, Germany
The pillars on the lintels of the tombs of the Eastern Han Dynasty in northern Shaanxi also faced a similar problem, that is, how to avoid the division of the picture while becoming the focus of the picture. The solution of the Han Dynasty was not to use perspective technology to introduce a third dimension into the picture, but to continue to make a fuss on the plane - the bending of the pillar largely weakened the straight and stiff division, and the swaying outline echoed and drove the activity of the left and right parts of the character, making the left and right of the column become a whole.
So, does this form of change also have a meaningful basis?
Now, we can return to the question posed at the beginning of this article: Why is the pillar in the portrait of Dabodang curved and not straight? The above-mentioned portraits of The King of Qin, the Complete Bi Gui Zhao, and the suide Yanjia fork pavilion portraits in the pillars are all curved, and the curved pillars are the commonality of these different themes, and the similar shape of the pillars also indicates that they may have the same source, but this source is obviously not an intrinsic element of the story, but comes from outside the story.
A passage in the Ten Continents of the Sea is noteworthy:
Kunlun, known as Kunling, is in the land of the West Sea, the sea of the North Sea, and goes to the shore for 130,000 miles. ...... Thirty-six thousand miles high in the mountains and flat land. There is a triangle on the top, the square is wide, the shape is like a basin, the lower narrow is wide, so it is called Kunlun. ...... The rule of the Queen Mother of the West is also the place of the True Official Immortal Spirit. [34]
The "lower narrow and upper wide" Xianshan is very common in Han Dynasty portrait stones (Fig. 18), and Wu Hung believes that this style should be the result of the absorption of the shape of the Ganoderma lucidum grass, which is regarded as an immortal medicine in the context of the belief in the immortals.[35] The images of Xianshan in northern Shaanxi are mostly depicted on the columns on both sides of the tomb door, the top of which is a platform, and the "lower narrow" part is in the shape of a curved flow, which can further support the theory that xianshan takes the shape of lingzhi and other immortal grasses. Such immortal mountains are juxtaposed on both sides of the tomb door, and above the platform are either the Eastern Prince and the West Queen Mother, or the unknown gods and monsters with the body of the cow head and the cow-headed chicken body, some of which also see the immortals who play the Six Bo, and the more complex ones are arranged with multiple peaks of different sizes and narrow and wide, and various animals and gods inhabit them (Figure 19). Obviously, the curved pillars in the story of The King of Qin and the King of Qin and the Complete Bi Gui Zhao of tomb lintel No. 16 of Dabaodang were influenced by the shape of these immortal mountains, and the pillars on both sides of the tomb door depicted this lingzhi grass-style immortal mountain (see Figure 1).
Figure 18 Portrait of the Eastern Han Dynasty sarcophagus of Gaojiagou Cliff Tomb in Pengshan, Sichuan
Figure 19 Portrait of Xian Shan on the left and right pillars of the tomb door of the Eastern Han Tomb in northern Shaanxi
1 Yulin Ancient City Boundary Tomb
2 meters grease party ditch tomb
3 MiZhiguanzhuang No. 8 Tomb
4 Yone Greasy Sho Seishu Image Stone
The story of Jing Ke's assassination of the King of Qin and the return of The Complete Bi to Zhao has no obvious connection with the belief in the immortals, so why did this strange deformation occur on the pillars in the story? This question is not only about the form of the column, but also about its function and meaning.
We can define a pillar at different levels. In architecture, the column is a member of the support beam frame and the roof that is erected from the bottom up, and its role in the structure is very critical. For example, a pillar between the two passages in the front and back chambers of the tomb of Suide Yang Mengyuan plays the role of supporting the banner (Fig. 20). This pillar and the standing stones on both sides (which actually act as pillars) divide the front and back walls into two bays. The two opening doorways make the central column stand out. Although the façade of the pillar is very narrow, the most important inscriptions in the tomb are engraved on it, thus transforming the pillar into an iconic symbol.
Figure 20 Mural portrait of Yang Mengyuan in the front room and back of yang Mengyuan's tomb in the eighth year (96) of the Eastern Han Dynasty in Suide, Shaanxi
In the eyes of the Han Dynasty, the façade image of the pillar was very important. Dou Li, the most representative component of Chinese architecture, laid its basic form in the Han Dynasty[37], pillar foundation, column body, bucket, chestnut, liter, these different forms of components organically cooperate with each other, while realizing the structural function, but also make the visual image of the pillar more varied. From the Han Dynasty tomb structures as well as the murals and Ming artifacts, we can see how fascinated the Han Dynasty people were with this image. On the central axis of the tomb chamber in Shandong Yinanbeizhai ( Fig. 21 ) , a large pillar is placed between the central partition wall of the rear chamber , but the column body and pillar foundation are omitted , and only a reversed chestnut is placed at the bottom , becoming an exaggerated decoration ( Fig. 22 ) . A more interesting example is found in the Tomb no. 7 of Mizhiguanzhuang, where there is a standing stone between the two openings in the west wall of its front chamber, which had originally completed its mission in the structure of the column, but the craftsmen carved images of the column and the bucket on its façade (Fig. 23)[39], that is, the "image" of the pillar embedded in the "entity" of the column. It can be seen that the monotonous "entity" is obviously unable to carry the full meaning of the column, but needs "images" to supplement and explain. In this way, we enter the level of the "meaning" of the pillar.
Figure 21 Tomb of the Eastern Han Dynasty in Yinanbei, Shandong
Figure 22 The back chamber of the Eastern Han Tomb in Yinanbei, Shandong
Figure 23 Mural in the western chamber of the tomb of The Eastern Han Dynasty No. 7 in Mizhiguanzhuang, Shaanxi
On a visual level, pillars can give people a wealth of associations. For example, the ancient Roman writer Marcus Vitruvius Pollio's Ten Books of Architecture recorded various columns in the classical era often imitated the proportions of the human body, and even directly designed as human portrait columns. A similar situation can be seen in the Han Dynasty, where the columns between the front chambers of the Han tomb in Dongjiazhuang, Anqiu, Shandong (Fig. 24)[41] and the niches in the side chamber of the No. 1 tomb of Changli Reservoir in Donghai, Jiangsu Province (Fig. 25)[42] have actually become "sculptures".
Figure 24 The column between the front and back of the Eastern Han Tomb in Dongjiazhuang, Anqiu, Shandong
Figure 25 Pillar in the side chamber of tomb No. 1 of the Eastern Han Dynasty in Changli Reservoir, Donghai, Jiangsu Province
The image gives the pillar another life; in turn, the structure of the pillar itself brings many associations. The height of the pillar is limited by materials and technology, but the height of imagination is infinite. The unattainable realm is often another world opposite the human world. Mountain peaks, ladders, trees, pillars, and ropes thrown into the air by the magician in the story of "Stealing Peaches" in Liaozhai Zhiyi can all be imagined as a road connecting and reaching the unknown world. Evidence for these ideas can be found in many Eastern Zhou and Han Dynasty texts, such as the mention of Jianmu in the Classic of Mountains and Seas,[44] which is regarded in the Huainan zi(墬形訓) as "the emperors descend from top to bottom". The cash trees seen in the Han Dynasty tombs in the Bashu region are decorated with various gods and spirits, and the covers are related to such concepts.
In this context, we can understand why the columns in some tombs are decorated with fairy spirits. For example, the pillars of The aforementioned Tomb No. 7 of Mizhiguanzhuang are decorated with various figures and animals, and there are two jade rabbits in the lower part that are making immortal medicine (see Figure 23); the pillars in the front and middle chambers of the tomb of Yinanbeizhai are carved with various immortals and auspicious birds and beasts, including foreign gods and immortals that look like Buddha statues (Fig. 26)[46]; the column in the center of the back room of the tomb of Dongjiazhuang in Anqiu depicts various rui beasts and human faces (Fig. 27).
Figure 26 Portrait of the column in front of the Eastern Han Tomb and the middle chamber of the Eastern Han Dynasty in The Southern and Northern Villages of Shandong
Figure 27 Shandong Anqiu Dongjiazhuang Eastern Han Tomb back room column unfolded diagram
The pillars of the tombs of Mizhi, Yinan and Anqiu support people's beliefs, but they must first really support the beams of the tombs, so they must maintain a straight waist, and the pillars in the painting can get rid of the constraints of materiality to a greater extent. The pillars in the murals in the north ear chamber of the Inner Mongolia and Linger Xiaobanshen Eastern Han Tombs, although very slender, pass through layers of horizontal fangs, rise to the top of the tomb, and the surrounding cloud patterns show that it supports both the image and the conceptual sky (Fig. 28). The pillars on the lintel of the Dabaodang "wandered" out of the original story, establishing a connection with the concept and form of the Immortal Mountain, and its torso became a wonderful twist. Unlike the pillars in the Annunciation, here meaning is no longer hidden within the form, but becomes one with the form, deviating from the logic of common sense.
Figure 28 Mural on the north wall of the north ear chamber of the Tomb of the Eastern Han Dynasty in Inner Mongolia and Linger Xiaobanshen
The combination of the pillar and the immortal mountain also led to a bolder change in the image. On the pillar to the right of the tomb door of Tomb No. 5 of Shenmu Dabaodang, a portrait of Zhao is flipped, split, and arranged up and down, and the lower part of it can be seen lin xiang standing as if holding a bi against the pillar, while King Qin Zhao rises to the top of the picture, juxtaposed with the immortals of Liubo on the Immortal Mountain, and a figure with a similar posture is added in the middle (Fig. 29). Here, the prototype of the Immortal Mountain appears simultaneously with the deformed pillar in a portrait, and the characters in the historical story are juxtaposed with the immortals. It was also this King Of Qin Zhao, who, in a story recorded in the Han Feizi, climbed Mount Hua and played with the gods. Whether this changed picture is related to the story of King Shō and Tenjin Hiro is difficult to determine. Visually, at least, the craftsmen created a new picture.
Figure 29 The column on the right side of the tomb door of Tomb No. 5 of Shenmu Dabaodang, Shaanxi
Finally, a little explanation of the method used in this article is required. The underlying theoretical premise of this paper is that, first, the image form has its own life, and its relationship with the content of the image is very complex, not just "determined" by the content; second, this theory can be revealed through the comparative analysis of the image material, rather than completely relying on another system (such as literature) to "prove". While I also believe that these images have some religious function, as mentioned above, in the process of continuous reproduction and deformation, the original meaning of the portrait tends to become less important, at least less certain.
Archaeologists might criticize me for not taking a typological approach, arranging materials chronologically and then looking for logical relationships within them. My reasons are twofold: First, the study and analysis of archaeological typology requires a sufficient number of specimens, which must cover a longer period of time, while the northern Shaanxi portrait stones are concentrated in the middle of the Eastern Han Dynasty, starting from the destruction of the Northern Xiongnu such as Dou Xian and other cheri generals in the first year of the reign of Emperor Yong and Emperor Yong to the end of the southern Xiongnu invasion of Xihe and Shangjun in the fifth year of Emperor Yonghe (140) [50], a time span of only fifty years. In this short historical period, it is difficult to achieve too meticulous staging of limited materials. Second, the subtle differences between these few examples are often not caused by temporal factors, but may have more complex reasons, such as the tradition of the workshop, the use of molds and pastels, the preferences of craftsmen or bereaved individuals, etc., which can change the composition of the image at any time. The results of archaeological typological analysis derived from taxonomy are mainly commonalities in the form of objects of study, and it is difficult to exert their magic power to explore individualized and changeable images.
This experimental study connects a number of Eastern Han dynasty portraits in northern Shaanxi, and "sympathetically" experiences and restores the process of image creation from the perspective of the craftsmen of that year. It should be pointed out that although the pictorial material used in the article seems to be abundant, these accidental archaeological materials are themselves scattered, fragments left over from historical flukes, and seeking a certain law in these fragments, which account for a very small proportion of the total number of actual works, is itself an adventure, so it is necessary to maintain sufficient vigilance against the above judgments.
Artistic creation is a complex process, full of all kinds of inevitability and contingency, in fact, we explore not the procedures of a certain craftsman's work, but the possibility of image production. There is no doubt that the story that took place in the stone workshop two thousand years ago may also develop along other lines, such as: first, the theme of various historical stories appeared on the lintel; second, the craftsman noticed the commonality, that is, all contained pillars; third, after repeated experimentation, a certain craftsman determined one of the stories in the center of the picture, so that it did not affect the expression of the story, but also played a role in dividing the picture; fourth, the scheme was so ingenious that it caused other craftsmen to imitate it. One of the bigger possibilities is that multiple paths of image development coexist and intertwine at the same time. The above possibilities present a complex linkage relationship between image content and form, which is undoubtedly an important topic in the study of art history. The existence of various possibilities makes the Han Dynasty portrait stone art show rich colors, and the study of these portraits becomes a dialogue with the hearts of ancient craftsmen.
(Originally published in Wu Hong, Zhu Qingsheng, Zheng Yan, eds., Studies on Ancient Tomb Art, Vol. 2, Changsha: Hunan Fine Arts Publishing House, 2013, pp. 149-167)
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