The glory of the craftsman, the lost way of art, why does the so-called world's first archway bring bad atmosphere?
#Damei China##Ancient Chinese Architecture ##河北 #
There are 100 monasteries on Mount Wutai, which are distributed in the Green Valley, five peaks with a radius of more than 200 kilometers. So many monasteries can make pilgrims come long distances, either for a long time or for "treasures" inside. Wutaishan Longquan Temple is famous for its stone carvings. Among these three masterpieces, the archway at the mountain gate has taken the limelight with its location, size, and complexity.
Longquan Temple is located on the mountainside of Kowloon Gang in the south of HuaiZhen, Wutai Mountain. It was originally the family temple of the Yang family of the Northern Song Dynasty, and was called Longquan Temple because there were clear springs such as Bijian Temple. When you think of Longquan Temple, you need to climb the 108-ladder mountain path, and this famous archway is just when you want to take a breather.
The whole body is carved with crystal white jade, and on the conventional shape of three doors and four pillars and double layers, countless stone carving techniques are used, relief, through carving, and flower carving, as if to really carve Han white jade as jade. The arch tickets of the arch tower in the middle are carved with two dragon play beads, two flying dragons soaring in the clouds, the dragon head is crazy, the dragon teeth are sharp, the dragon's whiskers are trembling, the dragon's claws are sharp, the carving is delicate and complex, dazzling, and the ear doors on both sides are engraved with peaches, dust, paper fans, treasure mirrors, and flower ornaments; the shape of the arch arch and the girder is more delicate than the most complex painted wooden components; the overly heavy stone tablets are supported by stone piers and oblique columns carved with dragon patterns and stone lions. The archway is carved with eighty-nine dragons and more than twenty lions, large and small, and they are set off by flower ornaments and bird accessories, making the archway seem to have a life, and countless cloud dragons are shuttling on it. The exquisite techniques of these stone carvings have reached the point of reaching the pinnacle of perfection, and the effect of carving out thin as willow leaves and transparent as jade pieces on the huge hard stones is breathtaking.
The builder of this magical work is Hu Mingzhu, a legendary stone carving master in the late Qing Dynasty. Hu Mingzhu is young and handsome, talented, and stands out among many competitors with his gorgeous design scheme. He took the dragon theme of Kowloon Gang and created such an extraordinary masterpiece, which made people be impressed by this splendid building as soon as they entered Longquan Temple, so that his other two works, the main building of the temple, the shejili tomb tower and the carved wall that set off it, became a foil, some of which were not divided into priorities.
The stone carving art of Longquan Temple reached the peak of the stone carving process at the end of the Qing Dynasty, depicting the wonderland of the Buddha Kingdom with delicate techniques, no less than the exquisite stone carvings in Western churches. But just as Chinese architecture after the Ming and Qing dynasties from simple and simple to gorgeous atmosphere, to modern times to exquisite complexity, the pursuit of details, although it reflects the progress of skills, but just like the plaything lost its will, more and more detached from the original intention of the building, it seems too complex and extravagant, especially with the temple, more noisy, the form is greater than the content, against the original of the Buddhist family. This kind of atmosphere seems to be becoming more and more intense in modern times, and modern Buddhist temples are also too much pursuit of gorgeous, complex, and grand style, with more earthly desires and less Buddhist tranquility.
