Longmen Grottoes were carved in the Tang Dynasty, accounting for the majority. Its advantage is that it has basically maintained the original appearance of the Tang Dynasty, and many works of Dunhuang have been renovated by later artists. Statues in this period are generally magnificent and plump. Taking Fengxian Temple completed in the prosperous Tang Dynasty as the representative, the height of the Central Giant Buddha (Rushena Giant Buddha) is 17. 14m, and the other eight statues juxtaposed with it are all above 10m. The Buddha statue has a clear inscription (672). According to legend, the face of the Buddha statue was carved with reference to the image of Wu Zetian. This legend is not completely impossible. The inscription on the pedestal of the Buddha statue records: "... Wu Zetian helped her make a fortune of 20 thousand yuan." There are many grotto works in the middle and late Tang Dynasty that are obviously inferior to their predecessors, and there are many signs in color restoration, scale, volume and verve.
The Tang grottoes in Shaanxi include the Tianlingshan Grottoes near Taiyuan. Unfortunately, it was almost empty in the old society, and now it is collected in major museums in Europe and America. Judging from the fact that there is only a fallen statue of a bodhisattva in Cave 14, ancient Chinese sculptors have a very accurate grasp of the proportion and structure of the human body, and their realistic carving ability of clothes pleats and ornaments is also superb.
Shandong was an underdeveloped area at that time, and the law of grottoes excavation was limited. Mainly some small caves and shrines near Jinan, such as Qianfo Mountain and Fohui Mountain. There is an inscription of Zhenguan 18 (644) on the Thousand Buddha Cliff, but it is seriously damaged as a whole. From the remaining statues, we can still see the rich, meticulous and beautiful style at that time.
There are many cliff stone carvings in Guangyuan, Bazhong, Tongjiang, Qionglai, Leshan and Jiajiang in southern Sichuan. Sichuan has been called "Land of Abundance" since Qin and Han Dynasties, and Buddhism is particularly prosperous here. There are more than 20 cliff carvings in the province, large and small. According to textual research, the earliest excavation of the Thousand Buddha Cliff in Guangyuan was in the Kaiyuan period of the Tang Dynasty. Although it is small in scale, it is carved on a steep cliff, with complex forms and many figures, including nearly 20 thousand statues, large and small. From the perspective of sculpture style, these works are good materials for studying the changes of sculpture art in Tang Dynasty. The most striking figure is the cliff statue of Leshan Giant Buddha, which is18m higher than Bamiyan Giant Buddha in Afghanistan (53m high and now destroyed). Carving began in 7 13 and was completed in 803, which took 90 years. Leshan Giant Buddha was dug out by the whole mountain, with the torrent of three rivers running at its feet, which is the largest Buddha statue in the world. Such a huge statue, well-proportioned, with thousands of gestures, dressed in cassock, has a serene and calm facial expression. Dazu stone carvings are not only famous for their statues in the Southern Song Dynasty, but also representative from the late Tang Dynasty to the Five Dynasties. Some statues of Dazu stone carvings are intertwined in the late Tang Dynasty, the Five Dynasties and the Song Dynasty, and it is difficult to distinguish them. Among them, in the third year of the late Tang Dynasty (896), the niche shadow was the most exquisite and the inscription was clear. In addition to three or four hundred Buddhist story figures, pavilions, mountains and trees, geisha flying in the sky, there are dozens of secular providers.
At the end of the Tang Dynasty, the regime split. In 907, the victory of the peasant uprising in Huang Chao was stolen by its rebel general Zhu Wen, and the first dynasty of the Five Dynasties-Hou Liang was established in Kaifeng, Henan. Then the later Tang Dynasty, the later Jin Dynasty, the later Han Dynasty and the later Zhou Dynasty, which are called "Five Dynasties" in history. That's not all. Almost at the same time, ten separatist forces, such as Wu (Yangzhou), wuyue (Hangzhou), Chu (Changsha), Fujian (Fuzhou), Houshu (Chengdu), Nantang (Nanjing), Nanhan (Guangzhou), Beihan (Taiyuan) and Nanping (Hubei), became chaotic in the world, which basically became the artistic style of sculpture in this period. Theoretically speaking, both Qianshu and Houshu in Sichuan should have grotto statues, both of which were once capitals. However, due to the short history, it is difficult to clearly identify their independent forms of existence. The easiest information to get directly is from Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes, which are clearly marked as 28 caves dug in the Five Dynasties. Because it is remote, it was not affected when the mainland was in chaos. However, the colored sculptures in this period obviously showed signs of rigidity, triviality and formality, which were far less magnificent than those in the prosperous Tang Dynasty.
Traditionally, people call tombs related to emperors "tombs". Most of the tombs of the Tang emperors are located near Xi 'an, with as many as 18 places. The pattern of tombs in the Tang Dynasty is relatively fixed, with stone statues standing between the walls of the two cities. In the Tang Dynasty, the imperial capital took mountains as the main body of the mausoleum, and there were animals or figures in front of it. For example, there is a statue of 14 in front of Zhaoling, which is a foreign prisoner captured by Emperor Taizong and symbolizes the submission of small countries in other places; There are Shi Hu and stone rhinoceros in front of the tomb, which are huge in size and simple in shape. The most famous sculpture art in this period is "Six Horses in Zhaoling", which is six reliefs made to commemorate Li Shimin's six war horses who made great contributions in the founding of the People's Republic of China. At that time, the famous painter of Emperor Taizong's life was strictly carved by sculptors on stones. It is said that the words praised by Emperor Taizong were written by the great calligrapher Ou Yangxun, which shows its high value. These six magical war horses all have their own names: Teller, Qing, Shivachi, Sa Lou Zi, Quan Mao? White hoofs are black. Sadly, there are purple dew and fist hair? Two reliefs were sold abroad by warlords in 19 14 and are now in the museum of the University of Pennsylvania. The relief works of these six horses show the maturity of animal sculpture in the Tang Dynasty, which makes the relief art enter a brilliant position. Many masters of animal painting in Tang Dynasty, such as Cao Ba and Han Gan, were all masters of horse painting, and the creation of Six Horses in Zhaoling was even earlier than them.
Ganling is the graveyard of Emperor Li Zhi and Empress Wu Zetian. There are many stone carvings in the mausoleum, including lions, figures, war horses, suzaku and huabiao. There are hundreds of them, all hard stone carvings, reflecting the infinite talents of sculptors who didn't leave their names at that time. Among the stone statues, the sculptures of civil and military guards are also very prominent, with a steady posture and a correct and solemn attitude, but their facial expressions are different. On the gate of Ganling, there are as many as 60 statues of envoys. Sadly, all the heads with vivid images and different expressions were cut off by foreign grave robbers, which is really heartbreaking!
In addition, there are a large number of stone carvings in royal tombs such as Shunling, Tang Ruizong Qiaoling, Gong Ling and Dingling. Generally speaking, the style of writing in the early Tang Dynasty is relatively simple, and Zhaoling Six will tend to be realistic and generally refined.
From the funerary objects, we can also see the sculpture art of the Tang Dynasty. At that time, the government agencies set up a special management department for the production of stone carvings and funerary wares, which was called "Zhenguan Department". During this period, Ming sculptures reflected a wide range of social life themes, with figures and animals as the most. The modeling characteristics of female figurines were in line with the popular aesthetic taste at that time, just as the images in the paintings of ladies at that time were plump, dignified and beautifully dressed. It was also a fashion for women to go out on horseback in the Tang Dynasty, which frequently appeared in paintings, sculptures and craft decorations at that time. Due to the relatively developed cultural exchanges with foreign countries in the Tang Dynasty, many foreign businessmen came to China for business or life, which were manifested in the sculptures of ships in the Ming Dynasty, such as "Hu Ren Dance", "slaves in the western regions", "horse riding merchants" and even the images of African blacks. The real stone statues commonly used in tombs in the Tang Dynasty are mostly made of tri-colored pottery. Its image is powerful, similar to that of Wang Shi in a Buddhist temple, and it has distinct image characteristics. During the Tang Dynasty, the world was full of songs and dances, and the songs and dances of Xi You were widely circulated among the royal family and the people. Therefore, there are a large number of dancing Xi figurines in the tombs of the Tang Dynasty, with exaggerated movements and rich expressions, which have reached a high artistic level in characterization. These funerary sculptures not only provide valuable materials for the study of China's ancient drama, music and other artistic fields, but also provide direct evidence for the study of costumes at that time. In the Tang Dynasty, Luoyang, Henan Province was taken as Tokyo, and ceramics were abundant around it. The sculpture of funerary wares is dominated by pottery tricolor. Tricolor is a special kind of pottery with low firing temperature and good soil plasticity. The main component of glaze is lead, and oxidized metals such as iron, copper and manganese are used as colorants. This kind of low-temperature glaze with rich color changes is very suitable for making works of art, and the glaze surface that is easy to flow will have unexpected changes. Since the Tang dynasty, porcelain has basically occupied the main materials, and stone carving, wood carving or copper casting have been rare.
Among the funerary objects in the Tang Dynasty, animal sculpture is also an important category. Among them, horses and camels are the most common, and they are the main tools for transportation, transportation, war and travel. Because agriculture and animal husbandry were relatively developed at that time, the animals that pig farmers kept pestering were also made into miniature sculptures, such as chickens, dogs, pigs, cows and sheep, just like the environment of the tomb owner before his death.
Decorative sculpture of building components is also an important branch of the art of Sui, Tang, Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms. Although the imperial palaces in the Tang Dynasty were also built with great efforts, such as the famous Daming Palace, the decorative reliefs on building components such as bricks and tiles in this period were inferior to those in the Qin and Han Dynasties. One of the more important reasons for this phenomenon may be the extensive use of painted decoration in buildings. The magnificent palaces in the Tang Dynasty have long since disappeared, while other types of buildings, such as bridges and towers, are extremely rare. The decorative reliefs on them seem to have nothing to recommend, and most of them are patterns and decorations such as dragons and flowers.
It is really a happy thing that Yang Huizhi, a famous sculptor in the Tang Dynasty, can become famous far and wide. Similarly, this is because his painting ability is also superb. He used to be painting friends with Wu Daozi. Later, he felt that painting could not beat Wu Daozi, so he turned to sculpture and achieved perfection.
According to legend, he created a thousand-handed and thousand-eyed Buddha statue, and "Carving Techniques" spread to the Song Dynasty is China's unique carving theory work, which also originated from Yang Huizhi. It's a pity that I can't see the original of his work now. Before him, there was a sculptor named Han, who was a "physiognomist" in the early Tang Dynasty and served the court sculpture work. It seems far-fetched for some sculpture historians to list Li Chun of Sui Dynasty as a sculptor. Li Chun is the designer and host of the famous "Zhao Zhouqiao". The architectural decoration on the bridge may not come from Li Chun, so it is more appropriate to list him as a bridge designer.
After the decline of the Tang Dynasty, from the tenth century to the thirteenth century, China experienced the historical stages of Song, Liao and Jin Dynasties. Sculpture art has a different style from the previous generation, and has also produced some more influential works, which have become more life-oriented, secular, realistic in creative techniques, more widely used in materials and improved in production techniques. But on the whole, its position in the whole history of China sculpture art is not as good as that of Han and Tang Dynasties.