Study On Shuilu Paintings In Ming Dynasty In Shanxi Area

The water and land liberation ceremony(Shuilu fahui)represents one of the oldest,most influential,and widely disseminated Buddhist ceremony types in ancient China.Within this type,water and land liberation ceremony paintings or images form a significant function in carrying out the ceremony's activities.Currently,Shanxi Province holds the most significant amount of Buddhist and Daoist sites dating from the water and land liberation ceremony's later period in the Yuan,Ming,and Qing dynasties.Further,water and land liberation ceremony imagery occupies a significant proportion of the visual subject matter discovered there within these sites.In this study,the author selects and analyzes Ming dynasty land and water liberation ceremony paintings from the Shanxi area using on-site fieldwork methods.Among the examples of land and water liberation ceremony paintings include many relatively understudied cases like those of Puguang Temple,Qingshi Temple,and newly discovered Wanxiang shui lu woodblocks.Although the amount of objects examined in this study is extensive,throughout the process,the author has identified some elements showcasing significant stylization patterns,with commonly seen regularities.In addition,compared to later examples,Ming dynasty land and water liberation ceremony paintings appear to manifest far richer artistic and iconographic attributions.Chapter one uses textual sources including local gazetteers and epigraphical inscriptions to study and form an essential grounding for the historical development and evolution,distribution patterns,and construction methods of the land and water liberation ceremony sites in Shanxi Province.This analysis also allows us to consider why this type of ritual ceremony grew in popularity during the Ming dynasty in this area.Chapter two focuses on the visual layout or schema and compositional patterns seen in the Shanxi area land and water liberation ceremony paintings.This study not only looks into the design of such paintings but also attempts to classify the considered mural paintings via categories or types,including the arch model(gongwei shi),parallel-arch model(gongwei-pingxing),and the three-type parallel model(sanzhongpingxing).The study also considers the evolution of these design types,arguing a shift from the arch motif/model to the parallel-arch model and finally to the three-type parallel model.In addition,this chapter also compares both painted scroll and woodblock image compositions to address changes in the land and water ceremony mural paintings and consider these changes with those seen in contemporary paintings of the ceremony depicted in other formats.The kinds of deities depicted in land and water liberation ceremony paintings are vast and complex yet have identifiable,regulated motifs.This study focuses on the discussion of deities depicted in the vast scope of land and water liberation ceremony paintings in the final four chapters.With the aid of textual sources,the author classifies the depictions of deities into four types,principal deities(zhengwei),celestial deities(tianjie),mortal deities(xiajie),and underworld deities(mingfu).Principal deities help define the primary function and character of the ceremonial painting.However,the identification of principal deities remains a highly disputed process.This study focuses on identifying specific Buddhas,Bodhisattvas,and Rajas,using their identification as a basis to study the compositional attributes of several more prominent monasteries in the Shanxi area.In doing so,this study attempts to analyze and locate specific religious influences that might have contributed to these sites' visual culture attributes.In addition,the author attempts to locate the origins of specific celestial deities,mortal deities,and underworld deities and interpret their visual iconography.The aim is to classify the different iconographical motifs of the land and water liberation ceremony according to such findings.Based on the above consideration,the author further attempts to clarify the emergence of specific unique attributes in some of the sites discussed and make more detailed identifications of their deities still considered ambiguous.Finally,with the results of such analysis,we can further assess these paintings' social and cultural backgrounds,including their sequence of production and theogony.In summary,the study offers two important conclusions: the emergence of standardization and secularization patterns during the Ming dynasty,seen in the case of land and water liberation ceremony paintings of Shanxi Province.In addition,the author puts forward that the land and water liberation ceremony paintings presented in this study also show evidence of a fusion of both standardization and secularization within this genre occurring during this period.