Colossal Buddha in Yungang
*Admittedly, as Stanley Abe claimed, the Chinese translation of “sculpture” might be problematic in expounding the gao in interpreting Chinese archaic carvings within the modern interpretative framework (Abe 2018, 94). For the convenience of the flow, the following post uses “sculpture” and “carving” interchangeably but with full respect to Abe’s reminder.
The colossal Buddha seated at Yungang, China, manifests a budding exploration of fusion between foreign traditions and Chinese indigenous predilections in rendering Buddhist imagery.
The colossal Buddha was deliberately executed as the positive foreground, protruding from the “carved-in” surface of the rock. Such a contrast formed in layerings intuitively stages audiences’ focal points onto the protruding Buddha because of its forward-oriented renderings. This consideration of juxtaposing foreground and background resonates with the colossal Buddha seated in Bamiyan, Afghanistan. However, the Buddha from Yungang was surrounded by a more expansive and elaborated-carved background in terms of size and depicted subjects. Looking closely at the background, the audience could feasibly capture how numerous parallel linear flowing patterns formed the circular halo. This flowing pattern appears again at the border, transitioning the entire statue to the rock in a relatively curved movement. The slight distinction should be credited to the tips of the bottom right lines, where a more curly style is performed at the border. The repetition in flowing patterns formed a double halo, directing a visual rhythm surrounding the Buddha (particularly his head). Meanwhile, these line-formed curved frames organically suited the moderately curved niche of the entire carving, demonstrating the artisans’ consciousness about creating a coherently formed piece. This doubled or tripled layers of repetitions in curves again emphasized the focal center should be situated at the Buddha with his immeasurable knowledge in his mind(head). The integration of linear patterns is noteworthily derived “from native Chinese style, as seen in late Zhou and Han dynasty painting, inlaid bronzes, and lacquer” (Lee 1994, 158). Besides incorporating Chinese patterns, the background size is conspicuously enlarged compared to the inspirational piece in Afghanistan. Such a spatial expansion enables the incorporation of a bodhisattva at a half-sized of the centered Buddha to stand at the right border of the carving. Having the bodhisattva’s torso facing the Buddha with a solemn hand pose, the supreme statue of the centered Buddha is further elevated. In other words, the locale of the bodhisattva, together with the curves, highlights the paramount significance of the Buddha from a compositional perspective.
Diving deeper into the details, more evidence of the fusion of pre-existing Buddhist art styles could be recognized. For the sake of discussion, I will focus on observing the “draperies.” The thinly carved curved lines on both Buddha and Bodhisattva’s cassocks resemble Sherman Lee’s description of the “string drapery” of the Bamiyan style (Lee 1994, 152). These low-relieved lines, however, are arguably complicated by the thinking of artistic reiteration in the context of Yungang. On the borders of the cassock, the audience could see a continuous wave-like line trafficking with the formally paralleled vertical lines. Such a moderate mixing of horizontally- and vertically-lined patterns is less evident in the Bamiyan iterations.
In a nutshell, the above discussion draws observations on composition, line, form, and patterns to explore how the archaic style of Chinese Buddhist art manifests a fusion of thinking in the example of the colossal Buddha of Yungang.
Cited Works:
Sherman Lee, “The Expansion of Buddhist Art to East Asia”, in A History of Far Eastern Art, 151, 155-63.
Stanley Abe, “Sculpture: A comparative history,” in Comparativism in Art History, 2-16.