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Northern Wei Dynasty Wei Lingzang Xue Fashao statue record
Source | "Chinese Calligraphy" 2012 No. 3 Author | Huang Dian shared | Shuyi Commune (ID: shufaorg)
The statue inscription of the Northern Wei Dynasty occupies an important position in the carved stone of the Northern Dynasty. In particular, the inscription of the Luoyang Longmen statue is the most. Since then, this custom of Buddhism has also influenced Taoism, and its typical example is the inscription of the statue of Yaowang Mountain in Tongchuan, Shaanxi. Among the various types of Northern Wei carved stones, the statue inscription has become a typical Wei style script with its special artistic taste. The analysis of the formation of this Wei style script can be observed from two perspectives: writing and engraving.
Northern Wei Dynasty Wei Lingzang Xue Fashao Statue Rubbing (New Extension)
First of all, from the writer's point of view, the Wei style regular script represented by the statue inscription is first of all from the folk regular script and Buddhist scripture copying style from the north. For example, in the eighth year of Taihe (484), the "Sima Jinlong Tomb Lacquer Painting Inscription", the knot is flat, leaving the horizontal rhyme of the official script, and the turning point is mostly square and Jun gestures, which can not only see the influence of the regular script of the Zhong Xuan era, but also see the strong and square pen of the folk regular script that has not been carved at that time, which is indeed different from the charming atmosphere of the south. Although there are very few inkblots in the Kaishu of the Northern Wei Dynasty that have been handed down to this day, from the late to the eighth year of Gaochang Yanchang (568), which is equivalent to the "Gaochang Manuscript Urgent Chapter" written in the Northern Zhou and Northern Qi dynasties (unearthed in Turpan, Xinjiang in 1960 and now stored in the Xinjiang Museum), it still retains the writing characteristics of this form of flattening and horizontal, and taking the square with the side. Look at the Buddhist scriptures at this time, such as the Northern Wei Dynasty's "Shenghu Yiji" and the Jilin Museum's collection of the "Northern Wei Dynasty Manuscript Buddhist Sutra" is similar to the Longmen statue record, with the pen sharp edge, the knot in the tight outreach, and the sixteen kingdoms period has been greatly improved compared with the Wei and Jin Dynasty scripture copying penmanship.
Secondly, as the most mature regular script stage of the Northern Dynasties, the Wei Ti Kaishu occurred after Emperor Xiaowen moved the capital to Luoyang and implemented the Sinicization reform, so learning from the south and being influenced by the mature Jin Kai in the south is also an important aspect. In the fine works of the Longmen statue, it is not difficult to see that the pen of "one extension and straight down" has replaced the official script in the early regular script of the Northern Wei Dynasty.
Northern Wei Dynasty Wei Lingzang Xue Fashao Statue Rubbing (Old Tuo) Collection of the National Library of China
Then analyze it from the perspective of the carved hand. Since the book is carved separately from the engraving, it can be seen in the statue that the engraver is quite free to write with a knife, and there is no need to carry the burden of being faithful to the book at all. Although the carver's chisel can be carved in a variety of directions, it can be seen from the statue that the most important method of cutting is from right to left. This smooth movement of the knife is exactly the opposite of the order in which the writer uses the pen from left to right. As a result, horizontal drawings are often carved into sharp knife strokes that are high on the left and low on the right, and follow the strokes from the beginning to the end, so that the points become triangles and the horizontal strokes become parallelograms. The origin of the fun of decoration is the chisel. As for the lack of brushstrokes, the lack of strokes, the moving parts, and the fragmentation of radicals, which were regarded as childish beauty by later generations, it is clear that many of the ingredients also come from the engraving work. Mentoring and apprenticeship is the only way for ancient craftsmen to pass on their skills and learn their skills, and an industry often has its own traditional habits, such as ancient painters, clay sculptures, builders, and masonry. Therefore, we believe that the customary knife technique of the inscription stone craftsmen in the Luoyang area of the Northern Wei Dynasty as the mainstream, or a kind of knife style taught by master and apprentice, should be another important factor in the formation of the inscription style of Longmen statues. It can be said that there is a common problem of carver participation in the stone carvings of the Northern Dynasties, and the statue inscription is particularly prominent.
In the palace of the Northern Wei Dynasty, the eunuch tasted the statue of the end of the law
Whether it is a skilled or clumsy engraver, and whatever the original intention, once the work is engraved, the ability of this craft skill is mixed with the expression of the handwriting; The decorative knife technique strengthens the calligrapher's strong pen characteristic. Therefore, as a typical example of Wei Kai's aesthetics, the statue record is the result of the synthesis of writing and engraving.
Longmen statue inscription Luoyang Longmen Grottoes, since the Northern Wei Dynasty Xiaowen Emperor moved the capital to Luoyang after the excavation, through the Northern Wei Dynasty to the Tang Dynasty more than 150 years, to build more than 100,000 Buddha statues, inscription carved stone more than 3,600 pieces. Among them, the statues of the Northern Wei Dynasty account for more than one-third of the entire grottoes, and retain a large number of statues of the Northern Wei Dynasty. Since the Qing Dynasty Huang Yi visited the stele to collect the rubbing, there was the Northern Wei Dynasty Longmen statue record four, ten, twenty products. Nineteen of the twenty products are concentrated in the Longmen Guyang Cave, from the bottom layer to the statue inscription engraved on the dome of the cave, showing the typical style of the statue inscription at that time.
Northern Wei Dynasty strong crossbow general, Ye Ting Ling Zhao Zhen statue rubbing, the original stone is located in the Lotus Cave
In the Guyang Cave carved stone, "Ox Statue Record" was engraved in the 19th year of Taihe (495), that is, the third year after Emperor Xiaowen moved the capital from Pingcheng to Luoyang in the Central Plains in the 17th year of Taihe (493). Its calligraphy style and carving knife technique have special significance, as the information of opening a new style, the value can not be underestimated, and the inscription of the dragon gate statue in the future is generally the development of this style. The most representative of the carved stones in Longmen is the four products of Longmen: "The Statue of Shiping Gong", engraved in the twenty-second year of Taihe (498), and the calligrapher is Zhu Yizhang; "Yang Dayan Statue Record", the full name is "Yang Dayan for the Xiaowen Emperor Statue Inscription" (no year and month), judging from the content of the inscription is about engraved in the Jingming era; "Yuan Detail Statue", the full name is "Beihai King Yuan Detail Statue Inscription", Taihe 22 years (498) carved stone; "Zheng Changyou Statue", the full name is "Yunyang Bo Zheng Changyou for the Deceased Parents and Other Statues", Jingming two years (501) carved stone. Except for the "Statue of Shiping Gong", which is a rare yang carving work in the Northern Wei Dynasty stone carving, the rest are all yin carving works.
Northern Wei Dynasty Shiping Gong Statue Rubbing, National Museum of China
If we put aside the mode of carving the knife for the time being, and analyze the skill of the writer's pen and the modeling ability of the regular script, we will find that compared with the Northern Wei Dynasty carved stones such as the "Great Dynasty Huayue Temple Tablet" and the "Songgaoling Temple Tablet" before the "Ox Statue Record", the maturity of Wei Ti Kaishu and Xinyan are advancing by leaps and bounds. The inscriptions of the Longmen statues, which are usually mistaken by people for the low-level carvers, are all the works donated by the nobles of the very high families at that time. If Zheng Changyou, Yang Dayan and others are all prominent among the aristocracy, so the "Longmen Twenty Grades" cannot simply be said to be carved by the people, on the contrary, they are the products of the aristocratic culture at that time. Therefore, the writers of these works, in the climax of Emperor Xiaowen's promotion of sinicization, may have been trying their best to learn the advanced regular script in the south.
As mentioned above, we have pointed out that the calligraphers and engravers of these statue inscriptions were after all mainly constrained by the traditional techniques of the pen and inscription stone scripts used in the Northern Dynasties, which played a decisive role in the formation of a vigorous, majestic, and sharp style. However, in the "Twenty Products of Longmen", "The Statue of Yuan Detail", "The Statue of Sun Qiusheng", and "The Statue of Sima Xie Boda" (works in the Taihe period) show the characteristics of comfort and softness, so it shows more of the immersion of the south wind. However, the writers of "The Statue of Zheng Changyou", "The Statue of Bhikshu Huigan" (502), and "The Statue of Helan Khan" (502) seem to be not good at writing similar new styles, and they are far from keeping up with the progress of the times in terms of pen and characters, but their engraving hands use the same knife technique as the "Yang Dayan Statue Record" and "Yuan Detail Statue Record". The reason why the four products of Longmen have typical significance is that they summarize the two types of Xinyan and bad Xinyan in Longmen stone carvings, and they are unified in the pattern of inscription stone book knife with decorative ornamentation of carving tools. The formation of this style is a mixture of many different factors, such as the old and the new, the pen and the knife, the naïve and the pretentious, but it is worth carefully discerning.
The original stone of the statue of Bhikshu Huigan is located in the 135th niche of Guyang Cave in Longmen Grottoes
The inscription of Yaowang Mountain is located in Yaowang Mountain, the eastern suburb of Yaoxian County, Shaanxi Province, and is named after the famous Tang Dynasty medical scientist Sun Simiao who lived in seclusion here. In the Northern Dynasties, Yaowang Mountain in Yaoxian County and nearby Fuping, Tongchuan and other places became the places of Buddhism and Taoism, and among the many stone carvings of Yaowang Mountain and Fuping and Tongchuan in Yaoxian County, which are preserved today, the statue of the Northern Wei Dynasty is the most wonderful. For example, the "Statue of Yao Boduo Brothers" (known as "Yao Wenqian Statue Tablet") carved in the 20th year of Taihe of the Northern Wei Dynasty in Yaowang Mountain, the "Mengwenzhuang Statue Record" carved in the second year of the Shengui in the Northern Wei Dynasty, the "Twenty Man-made Statues" carved in the third year of the Divine Turtle, the "Qiu Chensheng Statue Record" carved in the second year of the Shengui in the Northern Wei Dynasty, and the "Fan Nuzi Statue Tablet" in the first year of Taichang in the Northern Wei Dynasty in Fuping County, and the "One Hundred and Thirty Statues of Dongxiang Yizi" in the third year of Zhengguang (522) and so on. Among them, "Yao Boduo Brothers' Statue Record" is a Taoist statue carved stone, which occupies a prominent position in the Northern Wei Dynasty statue record because of its strange style. "Yao Boduo Statue Record" in the Northern Wei Dynasty carved stone can be classified into the simple, Tianqu all the way, the whole inscription is mixed, the knot is bizarre, the size is staggered, the change of demeanor seems to be in an instant, plus the carving of the knife willingly, or light or heavy, or square or round, or increase the pen or omission, not at all like the "Longmen Four Products" in the kind of skilled knife program, so the whole stele is integrated, with a strong carving combined with the interest, is not the natural expression of the writer and the carver who was not clever at that time. Analyzing the reason for this, it is actually the engraver's pursuit of the law but unable to express it, but he has no intention of adapting to the natural effect. Therefore, at this moment, you can almost get a glimpse of the "Guangwu General Tablet", "Erjiao", "The Tablet of the Good King" and "The Legend of the Longmen Statue", which is just like a piece of ore that contains a lot of wealth but has not been refined.
Northern Wei Dynasty Yao Boduo Taoist statue inscription rubbing (partial) The original stone is now in the Yaowang Mountain Museum
The inscription of Gongxian Grotto Temple is located on the sand cliff in the northwest of Gongxian County, Henan. Geographically, the sand cliffs are an extension of the mountain. Gongxian Cave Temple not only has exquisite cliff Buddha carvings and "Emperor and Empress Buddha Map" carved stones, and the number of statue inscriptions is also very rich. According to the statistics of the book "Gongxian Cave Temple" (Cultural Relics Publishing House, 1989 edition), there are 242 kinds of inscriptions and carved stones in the past dynasties. In addition to the "Seven Words Poem Carved Stone" (Lishu) judged from the style as the work of the Han Dynasty, there are as many as 40 statue inscriptions in the Northern Dynasties period, among which the style is prominent, and there is a typical aesthetic value in the Northern Dynasty carved stones, which are many statue inscriptions from the Eastern Wei Dynasty, the Western Wei Dynasty to the Northern Qi Dynasty. The biggest difference between this style and the typical features in the Northern Wei Dynasty's "Longmen Statue Inscription" is that it is manifested in the dot painting with many joint brushstrokes, and there is no bounded grid, and the lines are scattered. It can be seen as a "calligraphy" work that is rarely seen in the stone carvings of the Northern Dynasties, although such a work is far from the mature and interesting calligraphy skills of the south. His representative works such as the "Huiqing Statue Inscription" in the fourth year of the Eastern Wei Dynasty (537), the "Wei Wenxian Statue Inscription" in the fourth year of the Western Wei Dynasty (538), the "Faxun Statue Inscription" in the second year of Tianbao in the Northern Qi Dynasty (551), the "Daorong Statue Inscription" in the second year of Tianbao in the Northern Qi Dynasty (551), and the "Wei Xianming Statue Inscription" in the fourth year of the Northern Qi Tiantong (568) and so on. Take the Northern Qi Dynasty "Daorong Statue Inscription" as an example, the pen is round and thick, and the dot painting is mostly used with a joint pen, because of the use of the writing method of the calligraphy, so compared with the regular script stone carving of the same period, it appears vivid and colorful, and also makes the whole inscription ups and downs. The fun of carving with knives recedes into the background, and the feeling of writing, the style of the writer, is highlighted. In addition, the characteristics of this style seem to be related to the local stone, which often shows different engraving effects, just as different textures of writing materials will have different pen and ink effects, which is often overlooked.
The Northern Qi Dynasty Shami Daorong Statue is located in the 269th niche of the pit cliff behind the Gongxian Grottoes
Novice Daorong statue rubbing
The statue inscriptions from the Northern Wei Dynasty to the Northern Qi Dynasty and the Northern Zhou Dynasty cannot be counted due to religious worship, and we certainly cannot list them one by one here. If it is generally analyzed, the fine products in the inscription of Longmen stone carvings, because of the background of Emperor Xiaowen's construction of Luoyang, and mainly from the worship place of the Xianbei nobles of the Northern Wei Dynasty, may be regarded as the end of the Buddhist statue that tends to be aristocratic, which can also be inspired from the exquisite shape of the Longmen Buddha statue itself. Yaowangshan's "Statue of Yao Boduo Brothers" can be regarded as the lower civilian end of the statue in comparison. The inscription of the Buddha shrine statue in the Northern Dynasties, whether it is made of stone or bronze, and whether it is located in Luoyang or in the border, the style characteristics of the statue inscription are roughly the same as between the two ends of the Yaowangshan statue and the Longmen statue. Since the statue was not exclusively for the court, it did not show the court-like color as clearly as the imperial epitaph, but consistently reflected the vividness of the knife carving.
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