Women of the past (II): influence of Buddhism
Lo River Goddess Picture
The Three Kingdoms and Wei Jin period
Human images in art have gone through changes. The roles they have sometimes are overlapping, as from practicing primitive witchcraft to symbolizing longevity to educating. In Wei and Jin period, female virtues were further reinforced in women images. At the same time, they also acquired some new features during the process of Buddhism coming to China.
Daily life is a common subject in tomb decorations, as is in tombs of Wei and Jin period. Different from previous tomb decorations, portrayal bricks of Wei and Jin period show more linear characteristics of brush painting with a flowing dynamic. The artistic techniques of the brush paintings in tombs can reflect the styles and features of Chinese painting of that time.
Eating Picture
The Eating Picture was unearthed from the No. 4 tomb of the Wei Jin tomb group in Xincheng, Jiayuguan, Gansu. It is an ink and color drawing on brick. It depicts the scene of a maid eating in a hurry during the tomb owner's dinner event. The maid is dressed in a cross-collar costume and wearing an apron around her waist. She is holding a dish on her right hand and a pot of wine in her left hand. She looks careful and serious and is shuffling forward in small steps. The hemline of her dress and the wine pot are moving upward behind her, implying a fast speed. The maid's costume, facial features, and objects in her hands are all drawn in ink. The painting shows the artisan's high technique of summarizing the characteristics of the figure. Another Poultry Preparing Picture was found in No. 5 tomb, which depicts a life scene of two maids preparing the poultry for dinner. The life of the tomb owner is fully replicated in the underworld. How women in Wei and Jin period were dressed and looked is preserved to today. There are other portrayal bricks with daily life subjects such as picking mulberry, attending mulberry, soil tilling, and mating unearthed at the site. Undoubtedly, traditional burial customs brought the dead person's life to the underworld to eternalize the soul. Moreover, maid figures in Lourui murals found in Wangguo village, Jinci, Taiyuan, Shanxi also truthfully reflect the trend of women's costume during this period.
Poultry Preparing Picture
Paintings preserve human images in the purpose of leading the soul to heaven or creating an underworld that lasts forever. At the same time, in traditional society, it carries the function of recording the history and educating the people. Thus when the society set requirements on women's virtues, female images in art went through tremendous changes. Some of the paintings by Gu Gaizhi (顾恺之) are typical works reflecting the standards that traditional society with ritual system set on women. Gu Kaizhi's Lo River Goddess Picture is an artwork based on Cao Zhi's (曹植) literary work Lo River Goddess. In the painting, the artist visualizes the beauty of the goddess with a perfect female image. Although the character is still a goddess, it is different in essence from Nu Wa, Queen Mother of the West and goddess of the Hongshan Culture. The painting serves the purpose of aesthetic appreciation instead of worship. Meanwhile, Cao Zhi's Lo River Goddess is not a eulogy dedicated to the goddess, but an expression of the poet's inner feelings. In this way painting initiated a new era in which the functions of religion and decoration were weakened and the pure aesthetic function was promoted. Therefore, the feelings of scholar-officials started to influence painting, too.
Buddhism was booming in China during Wei Jin period and a large amount of temples and caves were built. Yungang Grottoes is a grand representative of Buddhist grottoes of this period. The No. 6 grotto of Yungang Grottoes was built by Emperor Xiaowen for his grandmother Queen Mother Feng and is the largest one with the "two Buddha sitting against each other" style. The "two Buddha sitting against each other" style is based on the story in the Lotus Sutras and is also a reference to the fact that the Queen Mother co-ruled the country with the emperor. Such political reference serves as evidence of court's support for the booming of Buddhism. The rulers believed in Buddhism, and at the same time considered it as a means to educate the people and stabilize the society. Thus Buddhism was widely advocated as long as it did no harm to court's reign. Against such a background with flourishing Buddhism, women's rights in the society were transplanted to and preserved the grottoes, which inevitably became the place where royal members prayed for their mothers.
The No. 6 grotto of Yungang Grottoes
The No. 123 grotto at the Maiji Mountain Grottoes "Boy and Girl" was built in Western Wei Dynasty and is a classic work among others with the same subjects. The clean look of the girl just reflected women's aesthetic features of this period. The girl's hair is scraped into a double-ringed bun and she is wearing Hu costume with a round collar and narrow sleeves. She is standing in a pious and respectful way. The look of the boy and girl is also a reflection of the popular idea of "Shou Gu Qiang Xiang" during the Wei Jin period. It also indicates that the literati elegance that was lightly metaphysical of Wei Jin period had had an impact on Buddhist creation to some extent. At the same time, the aesthetic standards that were imposed on women in a male-dominated world were also influenced.
Part of the Proofreading Picture of Northern Qi Dynasty
The Proofreading Picture of Northern Qi Dynasty is said to be a facsimile of the Song Dynasty. It depicts the scene of 11 people in charge of collating the history of the Five Classics collected by the country. It was in the seventh year of Tianbao Era of Northern Qi Dynasty. The 11 people ordered by the Emperor Wenxuan—Gao Yang (高洋)—included Fan Xun (樊逊) and other literary seniors. According to the postscript added by people of the Song Dynasty, the painting was originally a work by Yang Zihua (杨子华). The maid in the painting has a pink forehead. The features are much different from the images painted by Gu and Zhang. The figures all have oval faces and are consistent with the Lou Rui tomb murals.
During the Three Kingdoms period, Madam Zhao of King Wu became the first female painter recorded by history. Madam Zhao was good at spinning, needlework and silk and was renowned for the three talents. Her topographical map could be the origin of Chinese landscape painting.
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