A Preliminary Study On The Stone Relief Of Han Dynasty In Northern Shanxi And Jinxi

Han Dynasty pictorial carved stone is a kind of Han portrait stone carved in the form of art. The buildings on the ground are the ancestral halls, temple gates, while the underground buildings are known as the Han Dynasty grave. As cultural relics, Han Dynasty pictorial carved stone is archaeologically and academically valued. Since the appearance in the Western Han Dynasty, The portrait stone is developed in the Eastern Han Dynasty, and gradually formed into four areas, the Northern Shaanxi and western Shanxi area is one of the four major areas. Found in tombs, most of the Han Dynasty stone from this area has paintings remained on the surface, which is its characteristic. The Previous researches on the Han Dynasty pictorial carved stone are mainly focused on the theme, shape, decoration, and carving techniques, while there is less study on its coloured drawing. Therefore, this paper is focused on the Han Dynasty in Northern Shaanxi and Western Shanxi, tombs distribution,painted techniques, painted locations and characteristics, as well as complete a review research.This paper is divided into three parts:First part mainly describes the situation of Northern Shaanxi and Western Shanxi painted stone, focusing on the tomb and the stone number. The tomb stones in Northern Shaanxi area are mainly distributed in Yulin, located along the river, scattered in several counties there:Shenmu, Yuyang, Mizhi, Zizhou, and Suide. Stones of Western Shanxi are mainly found in the western city of Lvliang, are distributed along the river, with a lesser distribution, only found in Liulin and Lishi.Second part mainly discusses the techniques of Han Dynasty pictorial carved stone in Northern Shaanxi, Western Shanxi:mongline outline, colored painting, and embellished colored painting. Mongline outline generally used to outline image, a few of which are red brown lines, mainly in order to make the picture more clearly. colored painting is used on carved image, sometimes used together with outline techniques.It used in the part of figures, animals, sun, moon, and decoration parts. Embellished colored painting is less used, it is generally used in human or animal features, animals’spots, sometimes it is only used for decoration.Third parts mainly discuss the color and location of Han Dynasty pictorial carved stone in Northern Shaanxi and Western Shanxi. Red color, black color, white color, green color, brown color, and pink colors are mainly used, among which red color and black color is oriented, other colors are used as collocation. The painting position is relatively fixed, normally in the entrance of the tomb, such as the lintel, post, door frame, door leaf;Secondly in the top of tomb, the sun and the moon is carved in stone, symbolizing the sky.