Study On The Murals Of Ajanta Grottoes

Ajanta grottoes,with its unique achievement of "Trinity" of architecture,sculpture and murals,has become a model of Indian Buddhist art,and especially famous for its frescoes.The existing frescoes can be divided into two stages.The first stage is between the 2nd century BC and the 1st century AD,and the second stage is in the middle and later period of the 5th century A.D.in the period of Harisena of the Vakataka Dynasty,which was roughly the same time as the Tanyao Grottoes in Yungang.From the beginning to the end,the span is about 600 years,although there is an interval of more than 400 years between the two stages.Ajanta murals,forming a relatively complete historical sequence,reflect the key points in the history of Indian Buddhist painting: early Indian painting(cave 9 and 10),golden age(cave 16 and 17),and from climax to stagnation(cave 1 and 2).The former belongs to the first stage,while the latter two belong to the second stage.The second stage of mural painting period is not very long.At the same time,it is extremely gorgeous,but also rapidly turns from prosperity to decline,which is synchronized with the rise and fall of the golden age of Indian cultural history.Since then,there have been few achievements in Indian Buddhist murals.Ajanta murals are divided into three categories: J?taka,Buddhist story,and Buddha or Bodhisattva images.Among them,J?taka is the most common,followed by Buddhist story,while there are few images of Buddha and Bodhisattva.The whole mural is permeated with the unique secular joy of Indian art.There are more than 30 kinds of J?taka that can be accurately identified.Most of them can be seen in the murals of Chinese Grottoes,only a few of them are unique to Ajanta's murals,such as Sudhana J?taka and Sakra J?taka.Part of the murals in the later period of Ajanta,which are close to the Kizil Grottoes in China,reflect the idea of Sarv?stiv?din.Chinese Buddhist monks Xuanzang and Yijing traveled to India after the abandonment of Ajanta and recorded the spread of Hinayana and Mahayana in India.Ajanta murals mainly belong to the category of Hinayana,while Chinese Buddhist art mostly belongs to the category of Mahayana.In terms of artistic aesthetics,Ajanta's murals reflect the typical characteristics of "Indian Complexity ",which are mainly reflected in three aspects of space-time and narrative: the way of picture composition divided by space,the mode of space layout,and the way of narration and viewing.In the aspect of style and technique,the characters of India Heritage mode— concave convex method and enchanting style modelling are interwoven with the "feeling" and "taste" of Indian classical aesthetics,especially highlighting Indian characteristics.Ajanta frescoes influenced Chinese Buddhist painting.The dense and complicated scenes were found in the early Dunhuang frescoes,and the concave convex method enriched the technical systems of Chinese painting.With the decline of Ajanta,the Buddhist painting in Sui and Tang Dynasties washed away the traces of India and changed from Indian to Chinese.In addition to the core contents of the historical construction,the textual research and interpretation of mural themes,and the analysis of artistic characteristics of Ajanta murals,the Ajanta mural research based on China's position,emphasizes on the acceptance and transformation of Ajanta murals by Chinese Buddhist art,so as to create the mental process with Chinese characteristics.Looking at India from China,we can more clearly summarize the artistic achievements and historical status of Ajanta murals,which has gone beyond the scope of Buddhist art and become the visual carrier of ancient Indian history and humanity.