The changes in art during the Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties were more reflected in the art of calligraphy, with regular script truly appearing. Although the changes in the art of painting are not as significant as those in calligraphy, changes in social atmosphere and the rise of Buddhist worship have made the original simple and clear paintings further complicated. Cao Buxing founded Buddhist painting, and his disciple Wei Xie developed on his basis. As one of the signs of the maturity of painting, famous painters such as Gu Kaizhi, Dai Kui, Lu Tanwei, and Zhang Sengyao appeared in the south, while Yang Zihua, Cao Zhongda, and Tian Sengliang also appeared in the north. The identity of the painter gradually entered the In the writing of history books, it began to play an increasingly important role in social life.
The Wei and Jin Dynasties were a period of collision and integration between Buddhist thought and Confucian thought. Therefore, the rulers used religion to build temples, dig caves and statues, and used intuitive plastic arts to propagate the rulers' thoughts and doctrines. The representative grottoes are: Dunhuang Grottoes, Yungang Grottoes, Longmen Grottoes, Maijishan Grottoes, etc. There are a large number of Buddha statues carved in the grottoes, including stone carvings, wood carvings, clay sculptures, cast bronzes, etc. Buddha sculptures became the main body of Chinese sculpture at that time. These grottoes are constantly adding new sculptures as they develop, and the grottoes have been renovated, expanded, added and supplemented in the past dynasties. Grotto art is very representative in Chinese sculpture. For example, Dai Kui during the Eastern Jin Dynasty was good at carving and casting Buddha statues. The jade-body Buddha statue he made in Kangwa Coffin Temple, and Gu Kaizhi's mural "Vimalakirti Picture" and the Lion Garden The jade statue is known as the "Three Wonders of Wa Coffin Temple". The sculptures of this period are characterized by more attention to detail and more sophisticated techniques. Most of the sculpture images and themes are religious themes, so the sculpture images have the tendency of deification and exaggeration. Religion simplifies the subject matter of sculpture art, but the inner driving force of religious spirit also promotes the birth of a large number of fine works.
Zhong Yao during the Three Kingdoms (Wei) period was the first calligrapher to establish the status of regular script. His "Jian Ji Zhi Biao" and "Declaration Table" have become treasures that have been admired for generations. He and Wei Jian fought against the rites in separate courts, forming two schools of calligraphy in the north and the south.
In the Jin Dynasty, the Xuan Dynasty was very popular. Talking about Xuan Taoism and being suave were the trend of the times. They advocated "elegance" and "elegance" in life and affairs. In art, the beauty of harmony and tranquility was pursued. For a time, "father and son competed for victory, and brothers competed for joy." The Southern Dynasty's strings were circulated, and there were many bamboo slips. The artistic taste of the two kings (Wang Xizhi and Wang Xianzhi) catered to the requirements of the scholar-bureaucrats. Wang Xizhi's running script "Lanting Preface" is known as "the best in the world". The writing style is said to be as floating as a floating cloud and as powerful as a startling dragon. His son Wang Xianzhi's "Luo Shen Fu" has strong calligraphy, which is difficult for calligraphers. His "broken body" and "one-stroke calligraphy" created a great contribution to the history of calligraphy. With the support of calligraphy families such as Lu Ji, Wei Guan, Suo Jing, Wang Dao, Xie An, Xi Jian, Yu Liang, etc., Southern calligraphy has been shining for thousands of years. In the Southern Dynasties, Yang Xin of the Song Dynasty, Wang Sengqian of the Qi Dynasty, Xiao Zhiyun of the Liang Dynasty, and Chen Zhiyong all followed in his footsteps.
In the Northern Dynasties, there were heavy and lavish burials, with many of them praising ancestors, revealing family fortunes, making statues of Buddha, and carving stones. For example, Beibei Nantie, Beikai Nanxing, Beimin Nanshi, Beixiong Nanxiu are all their differences.
As for the representative works of the northern and southern schools, they are the "Inscription of the Crane" of the Southern Liang Dynasty and the "Stele of Zheng Wengong" of the Northern Wei Dynasty, which can be said to be the twin stars of the north and the south. Most of the writers of the Northern School were common people, and their books were not named. Therefore, the history of calligraphy calls Northern Wei calligraphy folk calligraphy. In terms of names, Zheng Daozhao and his son should be considered the crown prince at that time, and they are known as the "sages of books" and the Northern School. Wang Youjun.
During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, the development of social production was relatively slow, and there were not as many vivid creations and innovations in architecture as there were during the Han Dynasty. However, the introduction of Buddhism led to the development of Buddhist architecture, the emergence of high-rise pagodas, and the art of sculpture and painting from India and Central Asia. Not only did China's grottoes, Buddha statues, murals, etc. develop greatly, It also affected architectural art, making the relatively simple architectural style of the Han Dynasty more mature and rounded.
The Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties were a period when people were fully conscious. In the past, arts and crafts mostly reflected the mysterious world of gods and ghosts, but during this period, people looked at the real world with a new perspective. Show the freshness and loveliness of the human world in arts and crafts.
In the hundreds of years from the fall of the Han Dynasty to the reunification of the Sui Dynasty, the society was in turmoil and wars were frequent. The hardships of life forced people to seek spiritual refuge. As a result, Buddhism flourished in the vast area of ??China, and the religion Art also emerged.
Buddhist painting emerged during the Ming Dynasty of the Eastern Han Dynasty. During the Wei and Jin Dynasties, the creation of Buddhist art became a historical fact, and Buddhist statue art gradually became one of the main forms of expression of ancient Chinese stone carving art.
Sculptures in the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties also developed further on the basis of tradition. The struggle and integration between ethnic groups and the influence of foreign cultures made the stone carving art at that time more colorful. The first is the group of stone carvings in imperial mausoleums, which are more common than those in the Han Dynasty, and their styles have also undergone obvious changes.
The tomb tables of the Six Dynasties directly inherited the shape since the Han and Jin Dynasties. It is a polygonal column on the base. There is an inscribed square plate on the upper end of the column. Place a round cover on the lotus to ward off evil spirits. Among them, the Six Dynasties Xiaojing tomb table is the most gorgeous in shape. Although there are many carvings, it does not feel like a complicated mattress. From its exquisite lotus cover top decoration, we can see the influence of Buddhist art on traditional stone carvings.
The outstanding achievements of the stone carving art of the Northern Wei Dynasty can be seen from the existing relief sculptures in the Yonggu Mausoleum.
It can be seen that by the Northern and Southern Periods, Buddhist art had penetrated into all fields of stone sculpture and injected unprecedented vitality into it.
The cave temple statues in Buddhist art and the statues on various occasions are the means for religious worshipers to express their thoughts. Its extraordinary development is inseparable from the prosperity of Buddhism. It is a product of religion. At the same time, it also has a profound imprint on the society of the times, including both the worshipers' interpretation of the true meaning of Buddhism and the artist's inner monologue.
The development of Buddhist grottoes and sculpture art in the Northern Dynasties is closely related to the eastward spread of Buddhism, the high degree of national integration, and the brutal battles. It was relatively closed and stable, so Buddhist art was not as developed as in the Northern Dynasties. The red sandstone Southern Dynasty statues unearthed from Wanfo Temple are unique in their delicate and gorgeous expression techniques and delicate sword techniques.
In addition, small stone sculptures in South China have also developed to a considerable extent over hundreds of years, the most eye-catching of which are talc sculptures. Most of these carvings are buried artifacts in tombs. They have strong muscles, large breasts and protruding abdomen. They show dynamic figures who are calm and powerful, expressive and happy, and have a vivid legacy of Han Dynasty figurines.
Talc pigs are also common funerary objects, placed in pairs. At first, they were mostly vivid and realistic, and later evolved into abstract and formal styles. Emphasizing vividness and expressiveness, his usual techniques are deformation, exaggeration and abstraction, causing realistic forms to evolve into symbolic forms. The prosperity of the aristocratic mansions and the luxurious life of the nobles in the Northern Dynasties can be seen on the one hand from the exquisite stone chamber architecture and its stone carving art. On the other hand, the three-dimensional image of stone carving art reproduces the beautiful picture of people's life at that time.
Scanning the stone chamber stone carvings and statue stele carvings from the Northern Wei and Eastern Wei Dynasties, we can see veranda-style houses, straight rows of window lattice, graceful ladies, and nobles sitting with relaxed sleeves and wide arms. The vigorous and smooth hook shapes, alternately traditional and simple, vividly reflect the basic techniques and expression styles of traditional Chinese painting at that time. The brushwork is elegant but not vulgar, friendly and lyrical.
Since the Wei and Jin Dynasties, scholar-bureaucrats have advocated natural scenery and were open-minded, romantic and uninhibited, which contributed to the development of gardens behind aristocratic mansions. From the stone carvings, we can also see the interest of gathering stones to draw springs and planting forests and landscaping.
Stone carving art is not only a symbol of religious spirit, but also a representation of various social lives. Therefore, in fact, the content of stone carvings in the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties is extremely extensive. These are also foreign cultural factors introduced by the northwest peoples, which gradually and fundamentally changed the Central Plains people's daily life and their treatment of interior space furnishings.
The mainstream formation of stone carving art in this period was all influenced by Buddhist art, which is particularly fully reflected in the stone carving architectural art.
Architectural art is a highly comprehensive art, in which the craftsmanship of stone carving plays an extremely important role. The art of stone carving during the Northern and Southern Dynasties reached its peak and was unparalleled. This was fully reflected in the construction of large-scale grottoes and their statues, as well as the meticulous image processing and decorative composition.
On the one hand, on the grotto exterior corridors in Tianlong Mountain, Taiyuan, we have seen that stoneworkers used extremely exquisite skills to shape the architectural form of grottoes with imitation wood structures. The large number of such large-scale stone-carved buildings undoubtedly It laid the technical foundation for the widespread promotion of stone carving architecture in later generations. At present, most of the pre-medieval buildings in our country have disappeared, and the cave temples have left behind the standard architectural style of the time, which is even more valuable.
Chinese classical architecture has rich and colorful styles and decorative components, which are also reflected in different forms in stone carving art. For example, the image of architectural components in the Southern and Northern Dynasties is a softer and more elegant style than that of the Han Dynasty. The column bases appear in two forms: raspberry and lotus petals, and the column styles are also different in style, all with the purpose of enhancing the viewer's Visual beauty. At the same time, through the observation of stone carving forms, we can also appreciate the consistency in expression styles of Buddhist statues and paintings at that time.
The flying theme in the decorative sutra patterns is the most fascinating image of angels, with different styles, elegant and vivid, which best reflects the spirituality of the Buddhist spirit. The lintel of the niche is decorated with bird patterns and lush flowers and grass, which looks like a magnificent crown. The flame patterns on the backlight of the Buddha form a contrast with the seated and powerful Buddha.
The continuous curly grass pattern on two sides was used from the Han Dynasty to the Southern and Northern Dynasties, but its composition has been integrated into the Persian style, such as the combination of two sets of curly grass in opposite rows. Along with the spread of Buddhist art to the east, we can also find a lot of influence from ancient Indian, Persian and Greek decorative arts in the grotto decorative art of the Northern Dynasties.
The Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties were a vigorous development stage for Chinese stone carving art. The influence of foreign culture has played an immeasurable role in promoting the development of Chinese culture and art. Even if art serves religion, its imprint on social life is self-evident. The problem is that the introduction and popularity of Buddhist art has broadened the endless expression space for the development of classical art, allowing ancient Chinese art to truly get rid of the fetters of symbolist art and move towards realism.
During the Han Dynasty and its previous dynasties, ancient Chinese sculpture lacked lyricism and narrative. It was not until the flourishing of Buddhist sculpture art that it received a fundamental change.