A Study On The Content And Artistic Style Of The Stone Reliefs In The Han Dynasty In Xiaotangshan In Changqing District

Han Dynasty stone reliefs are the sculptures in the tombs, temples, overground shrines, underground tombs and other buildings which were engraved with images,representing a sacrificial funeral art. Overground shrine in Han Dynasty was built on the ground next to the building, mainly for ceremonial sacrifices, and its building materials are stone and wood, and the ancestral hall preserved down now are all stone ancestral hall. Xiaotangshan stone temple in Changqing District in Jinan is the most complete and the earliest one in China's current preservation, which was listed as the first batch of key cultural relics protection units in the year 1961. Xiaotangshan Stone Temple, built in the early period of the Eastern Han Dynasty, is an overhanging gable roof with single eaves and two rooms, whose walls and beams are all engraved with exquisite pictures. According to its spatial arrangement, it was based on the human world and combined the imagination of the underground world, created a communication between two divisions of the sacred space, and reflected the concept of universe in Han Dynasty. Reliefs in Xiaotangshan stone temple are exquisite, in which characters are vigorous and stylish but also vivid with graceful composition. It stands the artistic content of the Han Dynasty statues. It is of great significance to the study of the history, social life, artistic aesthetics and concept of the Han Dynasty.This article studied a large number of the first-hand field survey data of Xiaotangshan stone temple, Jiaxiang Wuliang temple, Yinan Han tomb and Jinan area Han Dynasty stone, using multidisciplinary of iconography, history, philology, archaeology, fine arts and so on. By using the three-level theory (description, analysis and explanation)proposed by Artistic historian Penovsky, this paper made an in-depth study on the reliefs of Xiaotangshan stone temple, and aimed at interpreting the symbolic meaning of the image. The comparison of reliefs in areas near Jinan, Jining Jiaxiang Wuliang temple, southern Linyi tomb in Han Dynasty aimed at highlighting the Xiaotangshan stone reliefs' unique artistic style features. According to the three-level theory of iconography, this paper's main part was divided into three parts. The first one was the field investigation of the reliefs in Xiaodangshan stone temple, which meant a interpretation of stone temple reliefs in the first level of "natural meaning" through the field investigation data. The second part was a comparison of the stone reliefs in Xiaotangshan stone temole and other areas, in which the carving skills, character modeling and language, and the composition of reliefs were analyzed. It was also a interpretation of stone temple reliefs in the second level of "conventional meaning".The last part was the symbolic meaning of the reliefs in Xiaotangshan stone temple and the concept of Han Dynasty it conveyed, which was also a interpretation of stone temple reliefs in the third level of "cultural significance".