Guangyuan Thousand-Buddha Cliff And Its Art Research

Guangyuan Thousand-Buddha Cliff is one of the grottoes that were excavated earliest and has the longest history,it not only has significant historical cultural value,it also has a unique artistic style,it plays an important role in the art history of Chinese grottoes.Guangyuan Thousand-Buddha Cliff is located on Jinniu Road of Ancient Shu,in Guangyuan Area,Sichuan Province;this area seats south to Shanxi Province,Gansu Province,and connects to Bashu on the west-southern side,which has been an important town in Northern Sichuan since ancient times.The grotto started excavating since the late period of Northern Wei Dynasty,developed from Sui Dynasty to Tangwuzhou,and reached the meridian of statue in Kaiyuan Year.There were still caves excavation going on during mid and late periods of Tang Dynasty until Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China Period,the lasting of statue activity shows the strong vitality of Thousand-Buddha Cliff.The article has six chapters.Chapter 1 includes purpose of the topic,the summary of the document,research methods,research keynotes and innovations.The summary of the document mainly uses the method of general review to arrange the previous researches systematically,as well as analyzing current research status.Chapter 2 mainly introduces the historical background,including two parts.Part 1 describes the basic appearance and its relating geographical environment,meteorological environment,etc;Part 2 describes the organic evolution of its location and the development background of Buddhism from the Northern Dynasty to the Republic of China period in detail.Part 3 divides the development process into 5 time periods based on combination of historical documents and structural characteristic of the grotto,which are Northern Dynasty,Sui to Zhenguan Year of early Tang Dynasity,Tang Gaozong,Wuzhou to Kaiyuan Ten year,Kaiyuan Ten Year to nowadays.On the basis of five periods,Chapter 4 explains the main content and artistic style of the Thousand-Buddha Cliff and analyzes the evolution characteristic of the grotto’s subjects.Chapter 5 analyzes the researches of Thousand-Buddha Cliff and early Buddhism in Bashu Area base on the discussion of the origin of artistic style of the grotto,the relationship between Thousand-Buddha Cliff and Bashu Buddha Statue,Buddhism routed of Bashu which differ from Thousand-Buddha Cliff and artistic level of Bashu and Thousand-Buddha Cliff in early stage.Chapter 6 expresses the conclusion and sublimation of the main viewpoint in the article.This article takes Guangyuan Thousand-Buddha Cliff as the object of study,through vertical comparison of the grotto in different periods and horizon comparison of grottoes in different areas,studies every important topic that arises in each stage.The article researches different sects of Buddhism,developments of different Buddhist scriptures and epidemics reflected by different topics.By analyzing grottoes of Thousand-Buddha Cliff that excavated in early stage from the perspective of graphics and fine arts,the article compares the art features that the grottoes formed from the ones in the central plain in the north of the sametime period and analyzes the origins of different themes in Thousand-Buddha Cliff.At the same time,it analyzes the significant inscriptions and prefaces,it also helps to explore the study of the subject matters in the grottoes.