Sichuan Cliff Tombs Art

Author: Fan Xiaoping
Publisher:
Publication Date: 2006-04-01
Features: Through long-term grassroots cultural relic work and in-depth research in the densely distributed areas of Ba-Shu cliff tombs, the author has conducted a comparative analysis and comparison of various materials on Ba-Shu cliff tomb archaeology over the past 100 years, starting from disciplines such as archaeology, art history, and ethnology. This has led to a scientific, systematic, and comprehensive summary of the development and evolution patterns of Ba-Shu cliff tombs. It is currently the most comprehensive academic monograph in China that reflects the history of Sichuan cliff tomb art. The author's academic work focuses on the historical context of Sichuan cliff tombs, which have been popular since the Eastern Han Dynasty, spanning over 1,500 years through the Three Kingdoms, Western and Eastern Jin, Northern and Southern Dynasties, Sui and Tang, Northern and Southern Song, Yuan, and Ming periods. It delves into the forms and social content of the decorative arts in cliff tombs, including relief bricks, relief stones, stone sarcophagi, and tomb chamber murals. The author has devoted significant effort to understanding the structural types of cliff tombs and the architectural art of cliff tombs. In the functional architectural art of tomb walls, floor bricks, central pillars, door lintels, coffin beds, and stone sarcophagi, as well as in the in-depth study of tomb such as figurines of humans and animals, pottery buildings, and money trees, the author has proposed some new insights. In the research on tomb chamber murals and relief paintings, the author has broken through traditional iconographic research models, achieving theoretical innovation. In the study of tomb chamber art, the author combines the current academic focus on the "Buddha transmission system to the south" and, based on cliff tomb archaeological materials, further demonstrates the existence of the Buddha transmission system in the decorative art of Ba-Shu cliff tombs. These are the main features and outstanding contributions of this work.