Li Song Skull Phantom Figure Play Research

"Skeleton Puppets ", one of the famous genre paintings created by Li Song from the Southern Song Dynasty, which is now collected in the Beijing Palace Museum. A few scholars have questioned the author of this painting from the viewpoint of the style, but base on the signature of Li Song written on the painting and the fact that a variety of historical materials have recorded the skeleton paintings drew by Li Song, the other scholars still claim Li Song the author of this painting. For its mystery and absurd content,"Skeleton Puppets " has been followed by lots of scholars. However, there is few amount of paper that obtains a rigorous and reasonable conclusion of this painting from holistic approach and deep analysis.On the basis of previous studies, the paper analyzes the history and the special content of " Skeleton Puppets", puts the skull image into a broad background, and searches in the significance of skull image from perspectives of both the Chinese Taoism tradition and the European art culture. Meanwhile, the paper also analyze the complex influence which the development course of Chinese puppet play has affected on the "Skeleton Puppets"(including puppet toys) and discriminates the image of women and babies from the angle of clothing and the history of jewelry. Combining all the results that gained from paths above, the author dig out as many details as possible, emerge the style and meaning of the " Skeleton Puppets", as well as the far-reaching impact on the ghost paintings of the Ming and Qing Dynasties.