Five Dynasties The King At The Straight Tomb Mural Studies

Consisting of two parts this paper is a preliminary and comprehensive research on the mural of Wang Chuzhi's Tomb built in the Five Dynasties. The first chapter is a discussion on some historical fine arts issues shown by the tomb mural. The second chapter focuses on the personal will of Wang Du, the tomb builder, embodied in the mural.Firstly, the mural painting of flowers and birds in this tomb is in a symmetric pattern. Obviously this strong decorative symmetric composition comes from the style of painting of flowers and birds in Tang Dynasty. The vivid depiction of flowers and birds means the local realistic painting based on symmetric composition, which is quite different from the realistic painting of flowers and birds in Song Dynasty. Aside from this, the "Boneless Method" is used for the painting of leaves on the flower-and-bird paintings in the front coffin chamber and west-wing chamber. These paintings provide reliable proofs of the source and development of this painting method.Secondly, the composition and painting skill of the mountain-and-river painting in this tomb inherit the style of Wu Daozi's and Wang Wei's styles in some places. We can see from this that the painters during the end of Tang Dynasty and beginning of Five Dynasties were all-embracing and they develop their own styles by absorbing different styles of different painters. Painting style is becoming diversified. The author of this paper also gives an analysis on the causes of this diversified painting style.Furthermore, the author believes that the moral paintings in this tomb somehow reflect the working condition of the folk painters at that time. The author points out that the mural paintings were accomplished by a well-organized painter group. This group, with clearly defined internal responsibility, was somehow like the "Painting Store" or "Painting Institute" in the Shazhou Prefecture in Tang Dynasty. This shows that folk painting industry was well matured at that time.Mural paintings in tombs are significantly different from those mural paintings and scroll paintings in temples. The mural paintings in this tomb not only reflect the traditional funeral concept but also, even more reflect Wang Du's personal will. Compared with...