Page 122 - The Arts of China, By Michael Sullivan Good Book

metres high, sits in an attitude of meditation; his shoulders and
chest are massive and yet finely proportioned, his face is clear-cut
with something of the masklike quality often found in Gandhara,
while the drapery is suggested by flat, straplike bands that disap-
pear into points as they pass round the contour ofarm or shoulder.
Perhaps, as Sickman has suggested, this curious convention is the
result of the sculptor s following, and not properly understand-
ing, a line drawing of some Western prototype, for great pains
were taken to copy the style of the more venerated images as
closely as possible.
By the end of the fifth century a change was beginning to appear
in the sculpture at Yiinkang, when this soUd and somewhat heavy
style was modified and refined by the native Chinese predilection
for abstract expression in terms of the flowing, rhythmic line. The
carvings in Cave VII, one of the most richly decorated of all, bear
witness to this transformation. This is one of the "paired" caves
dedicated by members of the imperial family about 480 or 490.
Every inch of the walls is decorated with reliefs which were once
painted in bright colours and testify to the gratitude, to the gener-
osity, and perhaps also to the anxiety about their future destiny of
the imperial donors. In long panels, the life of the Buddha is told

1 27 Buddha group, south wall of Pin-
yang-mng. Lungmen. Limestone. Late
Northern Wei DynaMy. probably
completed in sjj.
102