Medieval%20Chinese%20Buddhist%20Art

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Medieval ChineseBuddhist Art
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Early ChineseBuddhist Sculpture

• Buddhist teachings practices spread to
  China from India via trade routes along both land
  and sea. Some of the most visible traces of this
  spread are found along the famous silk road
  that ran from the Roman Islamic empires of West
  Asia all the way to China, with important side
  branches descending to North India. The icons
  shown here were created primarily in cave
  monasteries that sprang up flourished at
  important points along Chinas portion of the
  silk road, from the 5th century CE onward.
  Although such sculptural styles clearly
  originated in Northern India, they had evolved
  there only a few centuries earlier in the 2nd
  century CE when Roman artisans were hired to work
  for North Indian patrons. Once settled in China,
  Buddhist institutions developed primarily during
  the period of North/South division from the
  3rd-6th centuries CE, and then consolidated their
  power during the subsequent unification brought
  about in the 7th century by the Tang dynasty.

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Buddha seatedon a lotus(5th CE,Wei Dynasty)
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sitting Buddha w/flaming halo(5th-6th CE,
Dunhuang Caves)
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cave monastery at Longmen (5th-7th CE)
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seated Buddhawith halo(5th CE, Longmen)
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standing Buddha bodhisattvas(6th-7th CE,
Longmen Caves)
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2. Painting Sculpture in theSung Yuan
Dynasties

• After a brief period of disunity following
  the fall of the Tang in 906 CE, the Sung dynasty
  restored order to the Chinese empire in 960 CE.
  Over the next few centuries, Neo-Confucians
  increasingly criticized the emperors of this
  dynasty for their policy of appeasing potential
  northern invaders rather than confronting them
  with military force. Yet there can be no doubt
  that Song sponsorship of the arts led to a period
  of brilliant intellectual artistic activity,
  with talented painters and craftspeople (many of
  whom developed a keen interest in realism during
  this period) being richly rewarded by the
  imperial court, and art academies ranking artists
  according to their achievements. With the
  gradual weakening of this dynasty in the 13th
  century, however, Mongolian invaders under Kubla
  Khan easily invaded and took over the centers of
  power, installing themselves as the new Yuan
  dynasty after reportedly killing half of the
  population in their merciless raids. Surviving
  artists, who tended to resent the military
  weakness of the Song emperors for which the
  Chinese had suffered to intensely, developed new
  and distinct styles to distinguish themselves
  from their Song predecessors. Kublai Khans
  court, for its part, continued to sponsor the
  arts, inviting new painters from South China who
  likewise initiated new trends. The sculptures and
  paintings of this section illustrate the ongoing
  evolution of styles during both periods, and also
  reflect the dominance of Pure Land Chan
  Buddhist movements.

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temple in mountain landscape (12th CE, Song
Dynasty)
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bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara (12th CE, Sung
Dynasty)
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bodhisattva Guan Yin, standing
seated(12th-13th CE, Sung Dynasty)
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bodhisattvaManjushri(14th CE, Yuan Dynasty)
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western paradise of Amitabha(14th CE,Yuan
Dynasty)
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eastern pure land of the Medicine Buddha (1319
CE)
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(Side View)
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(Close Up)
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Bodhidharma, patriarch of Chan tradition (14th
CE)
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3. Icons Images inNeo-Confucian Tradition

• Developments in Buddhist art architecture
  were preceded, for almost a thousand years, by
  important developments in Confucian tradition,
  which beginning in the 2nd century BCE became the
  official ideology of the Chinese empire, a
  position which it retained until the early 20th
  CE. As in considering the impact of Islamic art
  on Indian culture previously dominated by
  Buddhist Hindu influences, it is important to
  look at a few examples of the way Confucian art
  (and especially the neo-Confucian forms that
  became increasingly influential in the 11th
  12th centuries CE) differed from Buddhist art.
  Like Muslims, Confucians almost without exception
  avoided iconic depictions, though for slightly
  different reasons Confucians regarded popular
  iconic representations of divine powers as
  distractions, which kept people from seeking the
  cultivation of jen (human-heartedness) within
  themselves. This section presents a few striking
  examples of Neo-Confucian art architecture,
  which reflect the central place of written
  classics and honoring human ancestors in
  Confucian tradition.

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stone carving of a Confucian classic (8th CE)
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Confucian temple (15th-16th CE, Ming Dynasty)
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vase with pomegranate(symbol of fertility
longevity)(late 17th CE)
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painting of Confucius(1743,Qing Dynasty)