Page 55 - China, 5000 years : innovation and transformation in the arts
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of these centuries was many times punctuated by interior walls of tombs. Murals in later aristocratic
government-sponsored anti-Buddhist campaigns, —tombs like that of Lou Rui (531-570) of
motivated by political necessity or by a given rulers
pro-Daoist leanings in the perennial competition Northern Qi; or of Princess Yongtai and the princes
between Buddhism and Daoism. Clearly, despite its Yide and Zhanghuai ofTang, all buried in 706
popularity, Buddhism remained ideologically reflect metropolitan style and court standards of
subordinate. workmanship and are secular in content. As one
would expect, the contemporaneous murals in the
Furthermore, during the late Han and Three Buddhist cave-temples at Dunhuang, in far western
Kingdoms periods, as Buddhism began to flourish, Gansu, show a great mixture of stylistic influences
and a more provincial level of workmanship.
it did so in part by acculturation, that is, by taking
on, in part, the teachings of Confucius and When court sculptors were set to work to produce
Mencius. For example, the Shijiamuni lihuo, the first
Buddhist text written (and not just cited) in China, Buddhist sculptures for the ruling houses, the results
proposes the essential "unity of the three creeds"- equaled any contemporaneous secular works. Court
Buddhism, Daoism, and Confucianism." In the
third and fourth centuries certain Buddhist sculptors of the Northern Wei imbued the colossal
metaphysical doctrines (xuantan yili) were held to Buddha atYungang with solemn dignity and the
be related to contemporary neo-Daoist reliefs in the Binyang Cave at Longmen with
metaphysical teachings (xtiaii xue), which were devout majesty. Court sculptors of the Tang empress
themselves tinged with Confucian theories.
Cultural influences did not flow in one direction Wu Zetian (r. 684-704), a wily ruler and passionate
only. Based on the theory that every human mind Buddhist, imbued the colossal Buddha and eight
contains and can discover within itself the Buddha- attendant divinities at the Fengxian Temple of
mind, the Chan Buddhist patriarch Huineng Longmen with benevolence, gentleness, earnestness,
(638-713) propounded the doctrine ofsudden and power. All these figures embody Chinese
sculpture at the top of its bent, and reflect the
enlightenment" (dunwu). In later centuries, long cultural efflorescence of the capitals to which they
after the heyday of Buddhism, this concept of were adjacent. They combine sublimity with a
sudden, unmediated perception or realization
became a key element of Chinese philosophy and worldly magnificence that attests to the secular
aesthetic theory. Its influence on the intellectual life coloration acquired by Chinese Buddhism.
of China was profound, pervasive, and lasting, but it Arguably, the finest Chinese Buddhist sculptures of
exerted that influence not as a precept of Buddhist this period were also the finest art works of their
time anywhere in the world.
faith but as an element of secular Neo-
Mainstream ideas, the cultural basis of both
Confucianism.'-This Sinification ot Buddhist religious and secular art, evolved gradually during
precepts was another manifestation of the the Southern Dynasties, Sui, and Tang from the
predominance of Confucian thought in Chinese intermingling of Buddhism and Confucianism to
the integration of Buddhism, Daoism, and
society even when Buddhism was at its peak. Confucianism. This trend continued until after the
Where social thinking consists mainly of religious Northern Song, when a renewed and enriched
doctrines, all aspects of social culture will be Confucianism achieved the social and political
permeated by religious overtones; where Confucian importance held by its precursor during the Han,
ethics and morality form the content of social and Buddhist art went into a rapid decline.
thought, secularity will predominate. Chinese
culture from the period of disunity through the Sui V.
and Tang was clearly of the second type.
Song Neo-Confucianism, and us continuations
Buddhist sculpture and painting of this era,
adorning temples and cave-temples, was indeed during the Ming and Qing. was by no means .1
highly sophisticated, but no more so than art works
of secular content. Noted artists of the time, such as monolithic set of teachings. The philosophers
Gu Kaizhi (ca. 344-ca. 406) of the Eastern Jin, assembled under this rubric ranged considerably in
portrayed religious and mundane subjects alike.
New artistic heights were achieved both by the their opinions and disputed then differences
Buddhist volumetric sculptures ofYungang and vehemently. But the common core "l Nieo-
Longmen in the north, which show influence from
Gandharan and Guptan art, and by the Six Confucianism was .1 primary concern with
Dynasties tomb carvings near Nanjing in the south,
which continued the Eastern Han tradition oi relief problems of ethics and epistemolog) and .1 wholt)
carving, mostly non-Buddhist in content, on the
secular approach to both these sets of questions.
Vastly oversimplifying, we might saj that Neo-
Confucians sought to understand the metaphysical
essence of the universe (the Dao) and to bung the
human mind heart (.vm, which of itself "has no
substance; it takes its reactions to the rights and
wrongs of everything in I leaven and earth for us
substance" 13 into harmony with it.
)
FIVE THOUSAND YEARS OF CHINESE CUtTURE 53
