Yunnan Ocean's Chinese Buddhism Statue Arts And Cultural Studies

Like Western art, Buddhist statue owns certain volume and range and requires a large amount of labor and money, which makes the statue-constructing a massive project. Since the day Buddhism was introduced, religion gradually became a strong power, which led to its equality to the imperial authority. As time passed by, subtle changes had happened to the status and roles of religion and religious beliefs both in Chinese culture and public lives. As a result, the Buddhist statues have to be shown by a unique cultural pattern. Buddhism is an international religion while the Buddhism in Yunnan is quite distinctive. It is not only because that there are three major genres——Mahayana, Tibetan Buddhism and Southern Theravada Buddhism, in Yunnan which covers about0.4million sq.km. area, but also that Yunnan-based Buddhism consists of distinct multiple ethnic cultures. Therefore, it reveals, from different levels and aspects, the essence and growing trend of Yunnan’s national culture.In terms of constructing measures, both ancient and present statues focus on linear rhythm or rhyme. The importance of line can be told from those Buddhist statues and wall paintings. The ancient Chinese statues represented more about the imperial authority and religion belief. Buddhist art mainly contains sculpture, painting and architecture, which specifically contain some typical religious art forms such as niches grotto statues, cliff inscriptions, wall paintings, temples, stone pillars, Buddhist pagoda and stele etc. Speaking of the spirit of Buddhist statue, we were likely to regard it as a "spiritual issue of modern art creation", which is exparte today.①Ancient Chinese statue art, just like that in western world, began to grow in various forms under the influence of religion and imperial authority.Referred to relevant references and field research, employed many theories from the subjects such as fine arts, plastic arts, Buddhist statue measurements and ritual as well as the science of religion, sociology, geography etc., this paper, based on information classification, will fully analyze those typical Chinese Buddhist statues existed in Yunnan. This paper will begin with the analysis of the relationship between Buddhism and Buddhist statue by firstly describing the evolution process of Chinese Buddhist Arhat statue existed in Yunnan and, analyzing the statue’s modeling and coloring. It will focus on the Arhat statue’s modeling, details, construction skills and decorative art, which exist in typical Chinese Buddhist temples. This paper will finally summarize the geographical features, originality and inclusivity indicated by the Arhat statue, and then make a clear understanding of the Arhat statue.