中国西藏壁画(英文版)/中国国宝系列

作者简介

内容简介

Potala Palace Murals Potala Palace, in Lhasa city, was built during the Songtsan Gambo period in the 7th century. In the 17th century, with the foundation of Ganden Phodrang regime, a theocracy was established in Tibet, and the 5th Dalai Lama moved into the palace. After a massive construction then, the Potala Palace was kept to the scale today with few expansions except the stupa of 13th Dalai Lama built in 1934. Potala Palace is the most impressive building in Tibet, collecting a lot of murals of diverse subjects and rich content. In addition to biographies of the Buddha, Bodhisattvas, and eminent monks, they also involve history, medicine, architecture, painting, art, calendar, sports and other fields. The existing murals only include a small number of remains of the Tubo period, the vast majority were painted after 17th century, and the total area covers more than 2,500 square meters. These paintings, reflecting the development trajectory of painting art in different historical periods of Tibet, and the variety of painting styles in Tibet, have a high historical, scientific and cultural value. The murals found in the east of the Dharmaraja Cave in the Potala Palace are the works of the 7th century AD. The unadorned and powerful brushwork, well-rounded figures, and bright and saturated colors, prove that they are no doubt the legacy left by Songtsan Gambo when building Potala Palace. A large number of murals are painted in the main halls of Potala Palace, which had been finished by several hundred people reputedly for more than a decade. Mural themes include the historical development of Buddhism in Tibet, 5th Dalai Lama’s life history, Princess Wencheng’s life in Tibet, ancient Tibetan architectural images, a variety of Buddha statues and vajra images. In the mid-17th century, during the expansion of Potala Palace, the murals in the newly built Red Palace were painted by the painters from Mointang and Kanzi schools of the Tibetan Buddhism. Mointang and Kanzi were the two major painting schools of Tibetan Buddhism, and then integrated into one gradually, known as Menkan school. Mointang school was founded by the disciple of Duozha Jieba, famous artist of Mointang, Shannan, Menla Dunzhujiacuo. Menla Dunzhujiacuo wrote a monograph, “Zaoxiang Liangdu Ruyizhu”. The Mointang school founded by him, featuring bright colors, sharp contrast, detailed depiction and magnificent style, is known as the orthodox painting school in Tibet. Kanzi school was founded by Kanzi Qinmu from Badui, Gonggagang, Tibet. Kanzi was largely affected by Sindhu and Nepal, featuring dark color, full composition, well-rounded figure, and strong decorative style. With the passage of time, in the large system of Menkan, a variety of painting styles appeared, not only maintaining and inherit the tradition of Tibetan art, but also absorbing the artistic styles of India, Nepal and China, with their unique charm of art. The murals in Potala Palace, which can be called the painting classics of Tibetan Buddhism, enjoy extremely rich techniques of expression. They have life-sized portraits of screen type, and large pictures of top view, featuring grand scenes, varied characters, and full composition. It uses the cavalier perspective, large entire screens with Z-shaped layout, and small portraits with far perspective composition. We can almost say that, Potala Palace murals are a history book and encyclopedia of Tibet in a drawing version.