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After 800 years of wind and rain! The twenty-eight constellations not only have colored sculptures but also "glazed versions"

The domestic 3A game "Black Magic: Wukong" has brought fire to nearly 30 filming locations in Shanxi, and the Jade Emperor Temple in Jincheng, which preserves the colorful sculptures of the Yuan Dynasty of the 28 stars, attracts tourists to come one after another. Visitors are amazed by the exquisite artistic techniques of the ancients after admiring the exquisite works of art up close. People don't know that there is still a group of 28 stars of the Jin Dynasty in the Jincheng Museum, which has a history of 821 years.

On September 10, the reporter came to Jincheng Jade Emperor Temple and Jincheng Museum to find out.

After 800 years of wind and rain! The twenty-eight constellations not only have colored sculptures but also "glazed versions"

There are more than 300 colored sculptures in the Jade Emperor Temple

Jincheng Jade Emperor Temple is located in the north of Wolong Mountain in Fucheng Village, Jincun Town, Zezhou County. The locals are accustomed to call it "Fucheng Jade Emperor Temple", which is the earliest, largest and most well-preserved Jade Emperor Temple in Jincheng area and even in the southeast of Jincheng.

The building, murals, glaze, inscriptions, brick carvings and woodcarvings in the Jade Emperor Temple in Fucheng are all masterpieces, the most distinctive color sculpture art can be said to be the first in the country, among which the 28 star sculptures produced by the combination of people and animals are the only ones in the world, known as "the only product in the sea". On January 13, 1988, the Jade Emperor Temple, known as the "treasure house of comprehensive art", was listed as the third batch of key cultural relics protection units in the country.

The Jade Emperor Temple was called "Jade Emperor Palace" in ancient times, was founded in the Song Xining period, Jin and Yuan have been rebuilt and repaired, and the existing buildings basically maintain the pattern of the Yuan Dynasty overhaul. The Jade Emperor Temple is arranged in order from south to north along the central axis: the first mountain gate, the instrument gate, the two mountain gates, the soup hall, the offering pavilion, the Jade Emperor Palace, the other two are equipped with the 28 Star Palace, the 12 Chen Palace, the 13 Yao Star Palace, the Guandi Palace, the Silkworm God Hall and the wing room, the second floor of the bell and drum and many other buildings, the overall building is scattered, the layout is rigorous, and the tower is magnificent.

The most precious part of the Jade Emperor Temple, when the number of existing more than 300 colored sculptures, belong to the Song, Jin, Yuan periods, are Taoist gods, it can be said that the Chinese Taoist gods system is systematically displayed with artistic techniques, with extraordinary ornamental value and cultural relics value.

After 800 years of wind and rain! The twenty-eight constellations not only have colored sculptures but also "glazed versions"

In this world of colored sculptures, the 28 star sculptures are the most eye-catching. This group of colored sculptures is located in the Twenty-Eight Star Hall on the west side of the backyard of the Jade Emperor Temple. Because it is still unique among the ancient statues and relics found in the country, it can be called the representative of the highest achievement of ancient Chinese sculpture art.

With rich imagination and ingenuity, the author of this group of colored sculptures for the first time observed the movement of celestial bodies, the changes of the four seasons, and the positioning of latitude and longitude in astronomy, 28 groups of equatorial constellations, and the 28 kinds of animals identified by Yuan Tiangang, a five-element scholar of the Tang Dynasty, were fused with metal, wood, water, fire, earth, the sun and the moon, creating flesh-and-blood mythological characters such as "virtual sun rat", "fangri rabbit", "winged fire snake", "water worm", "kang jin dragon" and other mythological characters.

Looking at the colored sculptures in the hall, the expressions of the twenty-eight stars are not as rigid as the Buddha statues in the Buddhist temples, and among these personified celestial gods, the kind old man, the dignified woman, the steady civil official, and the mighty warrior...... The lifelike depiction of the characters, the body posture of the statue itself and the flying and elegant ribbons of the clothes not only fully show the appearance characteristics of the gods and goddesses, but also make the whole hall of the color sculpture produce a majestic and imminent artistic effect. Although there are many characters, judging from the expressions, there is no sense of similarity. The Twenty-Eight Constellations are an excellent example of the perfect combination of realism and romanticism in ancient Chinese sculpture art, and it is also a unique masterpiece in the country.

Twenty-eight star color sculptures were created in the Yuan Dynasty? Or did it exist before the Yuan Dynasty? Now, there is a new debate about it.

In front of the 28 star halls on the west side of the Jade Emperor Palace, there is a stone tablet of the 5th year of Yongzheng of the Qing Dynasty (1728) "Twenty-eight Houses Heavy Makeup Record" recorded: "There are 28 Suzhou Houses in the old palace of Fucheng, created from the Song Xining room, for the portrait of the old man, and the makeup is painted again. Does this imply that future generations have built twenty-eight star halls in the Jade Emperor Temple as early as the Song Xining period, and since there is a palace, there will be a statue inside. According to the inscription, it is speculated that the creation time of the 28 constellations will be moved forward by about 200 years.

After 800 years of wind and rain! The twenty-eight constellations not only have colored sculptures but also "glazed versions"

In addition to the colored sculptures, there is also a group of 28 star glass

People don't know that in addition to the 28 star color sculptures, there is also a group of 28 star sights in the Jade Emperor Temple.

Before the Ming and Qing dynasties, the glaze mostly came from Shanxi. Jincheng is the area with the most production and use of glaze in Shanxi, and the Jade Emperor Temple is a collection of the most outstanding glazed components of various dynasties since the Jin Dynasty.

In 2008, the largest cultural relics protection project since the establishment of Jincheng started - the early building protection project in southern Shanxi was launched, and the ancient buildings including the Jade Emperor Temple, Lingchuan Longyan Temple, Gaoping Erlang Temple, Dayang Tangdi Temple, and Gaoping Kaihua Temple were repaired.

In this renovation, the 28 star glass returned to everyone's field of vision.

The glaze in the Jade Emperor Temple is mostly used for the Jade Emperor Palace, the Offering Pavilion, the Chengtang Hall and other important buildings on the central axis, the coloring is mainly yellow, green, peacock blue, and the roof of some halls also adopts the glazed brocade and trimming process.

In terms of technology, the production method of the glaze in the building of the Jade Emperor Temple is mostly pinching flowers, which can make the glaze more three-dimensional and ornamental.

Because the pavilion is close to the front of the Jade Emperor Palace, the distance between the two is relatively close, so it is difficult for visitors to see the pattern of the glazed ornaments on the top of the palace.

The lintel of the Jade Emperor Hall hangs the plaque of "the palace of the Jade Emperor of Haotian", and the green glazed edge of the top of the hall is cut. Generally speaking, the glazed ornaments on the ridge of the temple are mostly dragon and phoenix flowers, from the chronological point of view, the glaze used in the pavilion and the soup hall is mostly the relics of the Ming Dynasty, but the Jade Emperor Hall is different, the glazed glaze on the top of the temple is made in the Jin Dynasty, and the glazed ornament pattern is 28 stars.

After 800 years of wind and rain! The twenty-eight constellations not only have colored sculptures but also "glazed versions"

According to the existing Jin Taihe seven years (1207) "Rebuild the Jade Emperor Temple" stele shows that the craftsman who made the glaze on the top of the palace is Li Daozhen, a glaze craftsman in Yuanqing Village, East of Jincheng. In Taoist legends, the twenty-eight stars often follow the Jade Emperor to survey the sky, and it is logical that this group of colored glass appears on the top of the Jade Emperor Palace!

During the renovation of the Jade Emperor Temple, the cultural relics department found that not all of this group of glazes were the originals of the Jin Dynasty, and some of them were repaired by the Ming Dynasty. However, from the surviving glazed ridges, we can still clearly distinguish the images of the stars that are male or female, literary or martial, stepping on auspicious clouds, holding magic weapons, surrounded by birds and beasts, and with different expressions. Although after 800 years of vicissitudes of wind and rain, it is still brightly colored, and it is the fine product of the glaze of the Jin Dynasty.

The stars are changing, and the years are passing. After 800 years of erosion by wind, frost, snow and rain, the glaze of this group of 28 stars is mottled, and some ornaments are obviously incomplete. In order to better protect the cultural relics, now, this group of 28 star glazes, which are recognized as national second-class protected cultural relics, are transferred to the third floor of the Jincheng Museum for display.

Although there are also photos of the 28 stars of the Jade Emperor Temple hanging in the exhibition booth, visitors can compare them one by one according to the names. However, due to the fact that the actual role of the glazed ornaments and the colored sculptures is very different, and the author's imagination and conception are different when shaping the image in the creation, this group of characters on the glaze of the 28 stars of the Jin Dynasty made 821 years ago is completely different from the existing image of the 28 stars in the Jade Emperor Temple!

Source: Shanxi News Network

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