Christ's Kingdom Of Heaven And Buddha Woo World

This thesis is intended to contrast the form between Chinese and western religious art of each has the different cultural spirit and religious background. It inquires into the difference of Chinese and western aesthetic standards, and also presents some personal thinking about the historic significance of the two religious arts, and wants to make a realistic or illuminating conclusion. The prosperity of religions art is the common phenomenon in both China and west, and the two examples I selected are of high quality and representation. The mosaics in Monreale Cathedral in Sicily is praised as the greatest work of Byzantine style in the 12th century. The Bao-yu-jYng-bian of Dtmhuang frescoes in early Tang Dynasty is praised as the first sign of prosperous Tang Dynasty, it also has a brand of feudal society. This thesis starts from the similarity of the two, continues with the main reasons of difference, the ethical culture and the religious culture. Because of the dissimilar role the religion played in each culture, the basic difference of religious belief: secular attitude and sacred spirit towards belief. Base on that, I give the comparable definition about secular religious art and sacred religious art. The former is characterized by secular appreciation of the beautiful, worldly coloring, utilitarian and the advertisement of emperor抯 power, the latter is characterized by spiritual symbol, unconventional, non- material gain and the advertisement of God抯 power. The analysis and contrast about the form of the two examples are the focal points through which to complete the investigation of Chinese and western aesthetic standards. In view of the distinctive artistic principle and aesthetic standards, secular appreciation of contrast, such as material, composition, stylized line and molding, not only in the respect of the formal meaning, but also the aesthetic meaning. The material of the two refracts the different 搇ight?and 揷olor? The lofty light 3 2~m~Ll抧J gleams in mosaics, having the Christian aesthetic value. The color in Dunhuang frescoes is obviously the pleasant color, reflecting the national aesthetic mentality. The difference between the strict order in western religion and the aesthetic of imagery in China results in the great difference of the two in composition. To contrast the harmony between China and west, I form a comparable example between the commanding quality of gold in mosaics and the balancing quality of contrastive color in fresco. The spiritual tension and the life rhythm presents respectively in distinctive stylized lines. The difference of molding also presents the difference between Chinese and western religious belief and aesthetic, one is the model of symbolic beauty the other is the beauty of life. This thesis also extends to figure painting of Tang Dynasty and the history of traditional figure painting, advances the importance of life beauty and the secular aesthetic. Among the art history in the west, as a correspondence of the 12th century mosaics and later the stained glass, the expressionism in Germany in 20th is the good successor. It returns to express the spiritual world and provides the modern example of symbolic art.