Who is called a "plastic saint"?

Shaping the Sage of Tang Dynasty —— Yang Huizhi

When Wu Daozi, a painter of the Tang Dynasty, is mentioned, anyone who knows a little about China's art history will have a general impression. He is good at figures, Buddhism and Taoism, ghosts and gods, landscapes, birds and animals, plants, temples and so on, especially figures and Buddhism and Taoism. His mural "Hell in disguise" was once famous. Su Shi commented that his art was "innovative in statutes and mysterious in boldness". He used the brushwork of orchid leaves or water shield strips to express the folds of clothes and rounded them into floating trends, which Guo in the Northern Song Dynasty called "the Five Dynasties should be the wind" in his paintings. He also crossed the line with Jiao Mo, making an understatement, and was called "Wuzhuang" by the world. Have a great influence on future generations.

Speaking of Yang Huizhi, I'm afraid the number of people who know is limited. Yang Huizhi is a sculptor in the Tang Dynasty, and there is no test of the year of birth and death. It can only be roughly speculated that he lived in Kaiyuan and Tianbao years. According to the Song Dynasty poet Liu Daochun's Supplement to Five Dynasties Famous Paintings, "Yang Huizhi, I don't know where he came from, followed Wu Daozi to learn the calligraphy of Zhang Monk's friends, and made a clever one with the theme of painting friends." So he should be a contemporary of Wu Daozi, and his painting skills are quite fine. However, "Daozi's sound and light are absolutely perfect, and the benefits are all burning, resolutely working hard and specializing in plastic work." I find it very interesting. Most artists have some temper and personality. In fact, Yang's paintings may not be inferior to Wu's, but he changed careers because the sound and light were not obvious. Now that I think about it, it is a blessing for the sculpture industry. I heard that Michelangelo had a similar experience. Because he felt that his paintings were always inferior to those of Leonardo da Vinci, he took sculpture as his main business. In fact, his paintings are comparable to those of Leonardo da Vinci.

Looking back at Yang Huizhi, although he gave up painting and specialized in sculpture, his painting skills also laid a solid foundation for sculpture. At that time, it was called "Taoist painting, plastic painting, and monk's writing." It is believed that Su Yang "tried to capture the paintings of monks, but struggled for balance with Daozi". Zhang Sengyou, a native of Wuzhong in the Southern Dynasties, is good at figure painting with a wide range of subjects. Absorbing calligraphy pens, enriching painting techniques, and absorbing foreign forms, the picture has a sense of convexity and concavity, which has a deep influence on the painting style of figures in Sui and Tang Dynasties (hehe, the story that makes the finishing point is about him). He painted people, and he could wear clothes in the wild without getting lost in the present and the present. Yang Huizhi's sculptures also incorporate this feature. "Hui sculpture is an ancient and modern stunt because it inhibits the combination of techniques."

"Supplement to Five Dynasties Famous Paintings" records a story: "Huizhi once made a statue of an outstanding figure in Jingzhao House. After it was finished, Huizhi personally installed it and hung it on the wall in the market. Jingzhao people watched it and kept a cup of pavilion here every day. " Even the back of the statue is so vivid, which shows how superb Yang Huizhi's skill is. Yang Huizhi is a prolific sculptor, and his sculptures are amazing in quantity, quality and variety. According to the records of painting history, his works include the Jade Emperor of Beitaihua in Changle Township, Chang 'an, the landscape wall sculpture of Fuyan Temple in Lishan Mountain, Lintong, the Mo Wei statue of Fengxiang Tianzhu Temple, the Buddha statue in the main hall of Anye Temple in Bianzhou (later changed to Dasuoguo Temple) and its branches, the two statues in the back three doors of Tokyo Tibetan College and the Mo Wei statue as a pawn shop, and the five hundred arhats in the third door of Luoyang Guang 'ai Temple and Yang Huizhi in Lengga Mountain are also works of sculpture theory.

Yang Huizhi is a person who carries forward the form of "wall carving" that is not paid attention to in traditional sculpture. In my opinion, winning is a bit of a pique. Because Wu Daozi is good at large murals. "Wall carving" gives people the impression that color and volume are equally important, more like a three-dimensional picture scroll.

I have been to the Luohan Museum of Tang Dynasty sculpture in Baosheng Temple in the eastern suburb of Suzhou, where there are only nine statues of Yang Huizhi, so I just talked casually in a very unprofessional language:

The so-called nine arhats are actually combined into a whole in the form of "wall carvings", and their background is abrupt rocks, rolling clouds and rolling waves, some of which are similar to the circular reliefs of ancient Greece. And Lohan lives in a cave. The shapes of rocks are exaggerated and changeable, big and small, even like clouds. The characterization is based on the principle of realism. Once all kinds of ordinary people are carved, they immediately become low-browed bodhisattvas and glaring king kong with different postures. The facial expressions, postures, textures, clothes and other details of the characters are also very accurate. There has always been a saying in China's paintings that "Wu brings wind and Cao clothes come out of the water". In the Northern Dynasties, Cao painted Buddha statues with overlapping brushwork and tight clothes, which was called "a grass", while painters represented by Wu Daozi painted figures with round strokes and floating clothes, which was called "Five Dynasties". Yang Huizhi's works are the best of the two schools. The soft and smooth lines of the characters' clothing, the lightness and agility of the clothing, and the feeling and folds of a slight drop are all vividly displayed. The beauty of Yang Huizhi's statue lies in the fact that the author captures all these details, such as the dragon's eyes, its focus falls on the hideous dragon in the distance, the narcissism of the speaker, the slightly open mouth of the listener, the seemingly drooling appearance, the mysterious smile and compassionate concern of the topless person, the nodding stone and so on. , and make it a typical exaggeration and exquisite realism. To my surprise, one of the nine arhats is a statue of Liang Wudi. The lecturer told me to pay attention to its throat, and its esophagus, trachea and blood vessels were faintly visible. Although the whole person sat motionless, his eyelids were half drooping and he looked very weak, which was probably the portrayal before starvation. I can't help admiring Yang Huizhi's superb skills, but I don't know what the meaning is.

The boldness of vision of the whole "wall sculpture" is very grand, and you can feel its power when you are there. The "wall sculpture" developed by Yang Huizhi has a great influence on later generations and has become a part of China traditional sculpture. He is also worthy of the reputation of "shaping saints".