Study On The Grotto Art In Jiaodong Area Of Shandong Province

Grotto art is an ancient art, and almost keeps steps with the introduction of Buddhism. The starting, rising and falling of Buddhism directly affects the starting, rising and falling of grotto art. The Buddhist grotto art spreads through two routes; Jiaodong is located in the east of the road route and is the entrance of the sea route. The special geographical location makes its grotto art deferent.This paper, for the first time, regards Jiaodong grotto statues as an independent system. Jiaodong area including Qingdao, Weihai, Yantai, and I found eight grottoes here after my investigation in 2012. Five of them are Buddhist statues, another three are Taoist statues. The paper describes every grotto’s feature of Jiaodong, and focuses on the grotto statues’ historical background, artistic characteristics and location significance.The Buddhist grottoes of Jiaodong carved in Northern Wei Dynasty, Sui and Tang dynasties. All grottoes are carved on big stones except Gaiping mountain grotto. So they are small, and because of the rough rock and Wind erosion, most grottoes have been blurred. Buddhist grottoes are very special in the details, like the Buddha’s gesture and dress of Gaiping mountain grotto. The Taoist grotto carved in the Jin and Yuan dynasties, its location, subjects have direct relationship with the Quanzhen Taoism. Especially the Laizhou fairy grotto which was built by the famous taoist priest of Quanzhen Taoism whose name was Song Piyun. Song Piyun also built the famous Longshan grottoes. I found the fairy grotto is similar to the Longshan grottoes in many respects. The Tiecha mountain grotto’s name is "one thousand statues of Taoism", but in fact it has one thousand statues of Buddha. The Shengjing grottoes statues have been lost, but the surroundings display a great relationship with the Quanzhen Taoism.