A Study On The Beauty Of Vigour And Substantiality Embodied In The Han Tomb Murals

The development of China's tomb murals reached its peak at the Han Dynasty, a time when the foundation of traditional Chinese painting was laid down. The aesthetic style of this era plays a significant role in the formation of Chinese painting theories and even of artistic spirit later on. As an important part of the Han paintings, Han tomb mural painting is of great historical value and is very worthy of our attention and study.Taking colored murals in the Han tombs as target of research, and with a focus on the so called "Vigour & Substantiality" aesthetic style, the author here tries to analyze the formation of this style, its aesthetic origins, the specific manifestation and progression. The author also tries to discuss the artistic vista of this national heritage at its early stage as well as the impact on later fine arts.The achievement of researches on Han tomb murals are reflected in two aspects. On the one hand, from the archaeological perspective, the the researches have provided the information basis for study on Han tomb murals through discourse about historical and cultural significance; on the other hand, from the perspective of painting, the researches have combed the forms and techniques of Han tomb murals and summed up traits of painting language.Based on the previous research achievement mentioned above, combining the theories of archeology and fine arts, the author will integrate the research on such external factors as the subject matter of Han tomb murals, forms and techniques, emotional expression into the research on their spiritual facet in the hope of searching for close ties between the aesthetic appearance and inherent aesthetic origins. Through discussion on the formation of style of Han tomb murals, and by analyzing the impact of this aesthetic style on later mural paintings and national painting tradition, the author would like to reveal the meaning of Han aesthetic style towards China's artistic spirit.In this paper, the author will make use of archaeological literature to analyze the ideology and combine the morphologic study of archaeological literature with the study on ideological facet. First, the research on the ideological domain in Han dynasty shows that it is confucian aesthetics and the Zeitgeist of Han dynasty together that constructed the aesthetic origin of Han tomb mural arts. Regarding the archaeological research on Han tomb murals, the subject matters, forms and techniques, emotional expressions are discussed and analyzed seperately. The discourse concerned with subject matters include:the martyrs and chaste women who killed themselves for the sake of justice; majestic chariots on tour; kings and noblemen practising physical exercises and shooting the game; the reflection of vigorous and millitant folk custom, the bold and unrestrained momentum of music and dancing. The analysis of forms and techniques include the layout and structure of the painting, the characteristics of images and patterns, the skill of drawing lines in painting, artistic expressive means, color distribution and application, etc. Emotional expression comprises two parts, namely:using the form to express spirit and using colors and schemata to construire des mondes. All the above-mentioned researches will lead to the manifestation of the aesthetic style of "vigour and substantiality" of Han tomb murals. The heritage of and research on the aesthetic style of Han tomb murals will be carried out from two perspectives. On the one hand, the author will analyze its heritage and impact on the forms and techniques of painting in later generations; on the other hand, the author will analyze its impact on Chinese painting traditions, especially in terms of artistic spirit.In the conclusion it is pointed out that the confucian aesthetic style embodied in Han tomb murals as "vigour and substantiality" highlights the spirit of arts, which influences the aesthetic orientation of the school that advocated splendor in traditional Chinese painting. At the same time, the orientation of confucian values embodied as "vigour and substantiality" constitute the vigorous spirit of Han Chinese (the majority of Chinese ethnic groups). Both of these traits are needed for this new epoch.