Study On Tomb Murals Of Regions Of Henan During The Song And Jin Dynasties

This essay mainly chooses tomb murals as the research object, which involves fifty-three Song Dynasty tomb murals and four Jin Dynasty tomb murals in the regions of Henan in order for comprehensive research. The essay is divided into the following six parts:The introductory part mainly shows the purpose and significance of the topic, explain the related concepts as well as clarify the research methods.At the same time, it introduces the discoveries and archaeological researches about Tomb Murals of regions of Henan during the Song and Jin Dynasties.The first chapter mainly arranges the tombs of the Song and Jin period which is found in the regions of Henan. This area can consist of four parts:Central District, Western District, Southwest District and Northern District, in consideration of tomb decorations and geography. Related tombs can be divided into 3 types:brick-stone tombs, brick-chambered tombs and earth-caved tombs of building materials, types of coffin chambers and planar shapes. Most of the tombs are brick-chambered tombs which include single-chambered tombs, double-chambered tombs and three-chambered tombs. Among the rest of the related tombs, the single-chambered tombs have the largest number. The single-chambered tombs have 4 kinds which are circular, square, hexagon and octagon. Circular and square tombs were popular in the early Northern Song Dynasty, while in the late Northern Song Dynasty hexagon and octagon tombs came to prevalent trends. About the year of 1090, in the period of late Northern Song Dynasty, the number of fresco tombs significantly increased.In this chapter the writer attempts to sort out the sequence of the tombs in each di strict on the basis of chronological order. Meanwhile, this chapter also studies the Song and Jin Dynasties tombs from the forms of tombs, tomb decorations, funerary objects and the owner of the tombs, to ensure that a summary and comparison among them.The second chapter mainly discusses the images of tomb murals in detail which separated into five parts:the layout and image configuration, production and powder situations, murals content classification, style and colors, painting techniques. This chapter intends to have an overall understanding about the images of Tomb Murals of regions of Henan during the Song and Jin Dynasties. Tomb Murals of Regions of Henan mostly represented at the door of the tomb, tomb tunnel, the wall of coffin chamber and the inner topsides of the tomb. The wall of the coffin chamber was the most important position of tomb decoration, while the door of the tomb received less attention. Decorations at tomb tunnel and the inner topsides of the tomb were rare. Most tombs with frescoes contained mural paintings in two concerned positions. Meanwhile, tomb grade didn’t have direct relation to the range of mural painting in the tomb chamber.The process of painting frescoes was closely related to manuscripts. The frescoes of the tombs of the Song and Jin period which is found in the regions of Henan not only followed such tradition, but also implicated five forms of flexible applications. They are reproduction or slight modification of the manuscripts, the front-back inversion of the manuscripts, the dodge and reorganization of the manuscripts and college and references of different manuscripts. The contents of the frescoes were expected to be very complicated. In the chapter, the writer divided the theme of the frescoes into 12 categories with detailed descriptions of the painting position, period and regions.In the ancient Chinese society, some certain colors were symbols of etiquette and represented social concepts. The painter used different colors to distinguish the respectable and humble in the process of painting frescoes. In the second chapter, the tomb frescoes figures of the Song Dynasty in Deng feng Heishangou are analyzed as examples. In conclusion, while painting people of high social status, painters tended to use primary colors like red and yellow in their costumes. Painters tended to utilize secondary colors on people of relatively low social status which demonstrated the influence of social order and classes to the painters.From the view of painting technique, the tomb frescoes were mainly painted by altered levels of folk painters, but we can still discover the use of techniques like line drawing.The tomb frescoes would be a new way to reveal the standard of polite drawing in Song and Jin Dynasty.The third chapter focuses on the relationship between tomb murals and the masterpieces of paintings in prehistoric times.The concept of tomb murals and masterpieces of paintings is not totally dissimilar. In fact, in Southern and Northern Dynasties, tomb murals and paintings in daily life gradually became similar in the aspect of the layout and style, as if there is a certain correlation between them. In the Northern Song period, the establishment of Painting Academy and the existence of the imperial-court decorative painting is of great significance to the prosperity and development of paintings.The records of creation as well as communication between court painters and folk painters can be found in history books. The flourish of imperial-court decorative painting in Song Dynasty may have an impact on tomb mural creation, which is worthwhile attention. For further research, this chapter will also select characters, animals, flowers as specific subjects to make a comparison between masterpieces of painting and relevant tomb murals.The fourth chapter mainly analyses on some aspects which reflected in the tomb murals images of public life, burial customs, religious thoughts influences and so on. For example, it is a great way for us to know people’s life style from household furnishings and daily diet. Haiphong is the economic center commerce and city of the Northern Song period. At that time, citizen stratum enjoyed extremely rich cultural life, which can also be reflected from funeral behaviors. The thought of the Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism’s influence on the tomb murals is mainly showed in numerous scenes about immortality and salvation. It is correspondence with the thought of a combination of three religions.The last part makes a comprehensive summary on the above studies and attempting to generalize the significance of Song and Jin tombs murals in Henan regions.