Research On The Existing Taoist Chaoyuantu Handscrol

The Eighty-seven Divine Immortals Scrolls and the Chaoyuan Immortal Battle Figure must not be Tang and Song texts.The main contents of this paper are as follows:first,to review the extant literature and images of painting studies,to sort out the use of ancient painting masters,and to classify the occasions and purposes of their use;second,to make inferences about the age and function of the extant hand scroll masters in the light of the extant images of the line drawings of the Chaoyuan figure and the Taoist doctrinal texts and other existing materials;third,to analyze the details of the extant line drawings of the hand scrolls on the basis of the existing studies,and to make inferences about the period in which the hand scrolls themselves were produced,by interpreting and analyzing both the errors and misinterpretations of the details of the extant line drawings of the hand scrolls.The following conclusions are drawn:The three surviving line drawings of the Daoist Chaoyuan figure were used in the former Daoist interior murals,and may have been used in other religious arts.The hand scrolls originate from the same mother text,which from no earlier than the mid-Ming dynasty,near the end of the Ming Dynasty when the Quanzhen school was in its mid-emergence,after the systematic evolution of the Taoist "four extremes" of the Heavenly Emperor,it is an official painting.One of them was later purchased by a private painting store.This paper agrees with the"forgery theory" that the existing line drawings of Taoist Chaoyuan are forgeries made by painters from the Ming and Qing dynasties to achieve short-term profits,for non-professional religious purposes,Rather,it is a general reading product for enjoyment.