Replicas of the murals of three bodhisattvas.
historic opportunity
It was in the early 1990s, when a China diplomat visited the British Museum, he saw the murals of three bodhisattvas in the China Pavilion. The murals of these three bodhisattvas are 4 meters high and 3.9 meters wide, which are magnificent and instantly envelop people in a solemn atmosphere. Looking up, I saw that the overall picture was golden red and magnificent. The three bodhisattvas were elegant, luxuriant in clothes and lifelike. Their works were shocking and powerful, which made people admire the exquisiteness of China's ancient painting art.
The mural of Three Bodhisattvas is one of the largest and tallest murals in the British Museum, and it is also the treasure of the town hall.
The diplomat was shocked, especially when he read the English introduction. This painting is actually from China, from his hometown-China! He stood in front of the mural for a long time, filled with emotion, and crossed the ocean. How did the mural in his hometown get here? What hardships and changes have you experienced? Looking back at the three bodhisattvas, embedded in this ocean wall, cold and silent. A diplomat's heart suddenly gives birth to infinite taste. Only when a culture is rooted in the local area can it show its cultural characteristics and values. Without its roots, the cultural soul it contains will lose its vitality and vitality.
Since then, the souls and dreams of diplomats have been filled with murals of the Three Bodhisattvas. He is restless and has an instinctive sense of responsibility, which makes him write a letter to his hometown parents, the secretary of the county party Committee of Xingtang.
This letter carries the feelings of the diplomat's hometown, and it was delivered across the ocean, and finally landed on the desk of Li Zunying, then secretary of the Xingtang County Party Committee.
On this day, Li Zunying just finished a busy day's official business, regardless of physical fatigue and then dealt with letters from the masses. A special letter caught his attention, with a foreign stamp on it. Who sent him a letter from abroad? Li Zunying opened the envelope doubtfully.
Li Zunying was deeply moved by the contents of the letter. He immediately set out to verify that there was indeed a Liang Qing Temple in the history of the Tang Dynasty, and there were indeed three murals of Buddha statues in the temple, but Liang Qing Temple was razed to the ground in War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, and the three murals of Buddha statues were also missing. Li Zunying was even more sorry after learning the situation. At that time, Xingtang was a poor county, so it was impossible to send people to visit the murals and had no financial resources to buy them back.
This matter was put down in this way and became a long-term concern in Li Zunying's heart.
In 2002, Li Zunying was appointed as Deputy Secretary of Shijiazhuang Municipal Committee. In February that year, he led a delegation to visit Europe. On the second day in London, England, he couldn't wait to go to the British Museum. When he stood in front of the murals of the Three Bodhisattvas, like a diplomat, he was instantly shocked!
Li Zunying excitedly pressed the shutter and photographed the murals of the three bodhisattvas. After returning home, he selected the best one, developed it and handed it over to the relevant departments of the Tang Dynasty. Since then, the mural photos of the Three Bodhisattvas have been hung in public places such as the government guest house in Xingtang County, becoming a local cultural card.
At this point, if it is not the responsibility of diplomats and local parents, how can the murals of the three bodhisattvas return to the public eye? These two chances seem to be coincidences, but in fact they reflect their love and responsibility for their hometown and national culture.
Eight years after returning to Xingtang County, the mural photos of the Three Bodhisattvas ushered in another "predestined relationship", that is, Hao, a research librarian of Hebei Provincial Museum.
In the spring of 20 10, Hao went to Xingtang county for cultural relics review and stayed in the county guest house at night. In the lobby of the hostel, he saw photos of three colorful murals of bodhisattvas.
If others are shocked by the overall momentum of murals, Hao is shocked by murals from a professional perspective. There are many ancient murals in Hebei, but such a large single figure mural is extremely rare. There are murals of Beiyue Temple in Quyang, Hebei Province and Geyuan Temple in Laiyuan, which can be compared with them. You can observe the murals of Beiyue Temple, but the murals of Geyuan Temple are covered with a thick layer of white ash, and only the legs of the characters in the murals are exposed where the white ash falls off. Such a tall and well-preserved mural of Three Bodhisattvas is invaluable for historical research!
Hao's emotion surge, he looked and looked, but he didn't move. I wish I could see the real thing, but I really can't copy one in equal proportion, so that people in the Tang Dynasty, Hebei Province and even the whole country know that Hebei once had such exquisite mural works! Our history and culture are so profound!
This idea is like a seed, buried deep in Hao's heart, waiting for the right time to sprout. Like Li Zunying at the beginning, after meeting, she has kept a blank somewhere in her heart, missing and caring, and she can't let go anymore.
In 20 17, Hao went to Beijing to attend an art training, during which he learned that the national art fund project "Millennium Murals, Centennial Vicissitude-Copy, Dissemination and Exhibition of Ancient Murals and Precious Murals Lost Abroad" declared by Jiangsu Institute of Technology was under preparation. This is really a surprise. He immediately introduced the murals of the Three Bodhisattvas in the Tang Dynasty to Mr. Wang of the College. The other party immediately said yes, and hoped that Hao would copy the murals and participate in the exhibition project of the National Art Foundation.
The door of fate suddenly opened, revealing a bright orange light. This is simply an opportunity specially prepared for the murals of Hao and the Three Bodhisattvas!
Original picture of the mural of Three Bodhisattvas.
Yuan Tan Liang Qing Temple
The Tang Dynasty, located at the junction of the hilly area at the eastern foot of Taihang Mountain and the North China Plain, looks like an open book on the vast land from the air. Low mountains, hills and plains are arranged in an orderly way, just like neat chapters in a book.
It has a long history. Emperor Yao became famous, and the first emperor set the county. Two ancient post roads connect Yan Jin. Up to now, it has a recorded history of more than 4,000 years and a county-building history of more than 2,300 years. From the Southern and Northern Dynasties, Buddhist culture rose here. By the Tang, Song and Jin Dynasties, there were many temples in the territory, and incense was flourishing, including Xianming Temple, Feng Chong Temple and Chongfu Temple. Confucian Temple, Town God Temple, Liuli Temple ... Up to the Qing Dynasty, there were 54 recorded temples in China, each with its own style, but all of them conveyed people's good wishes for a happy life without exception.
An important reason for the prosperity of Buddhist culture in the Tang Dynasty was the proximity to Wutai Mountain, a famous Buddhist mountain in China. Go northwest, and you can reach Wutai Mountain after walking 100 kilometers in the Tang Dynasty. Therefore, traveling to the Tang Dynasty has become the only way for monks, good men and women from all over the world to worship the north, which is called the "South Gate of Wutai Mountain". In order to facilitate the pilgrims to rest in the middle, Wutai Mountain and other relevant parties invested in the establishment of a "rest temple" in Hangtang. The top of Wutai Mountain is frozen all year round, and it is cool and livable in midsummer. It is a summer resort, so it is also called "Liang Qing". This "Xiejiao Temple" built in the Tang Dynasty was named "Liang Qing Temple". The construction of Liang Qing Temple has facilitated the rest and accommodation of monks and believers, and it has also become the center of culture and trade between North and South. Silk, tea, porcelain and other products in the south are transported to Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Zhangjiakou and other places via this road, while agricultural and sideline products in the north are also sold here and brought to all parts of the country. As you can imagine, monks come and go, and businessmen come and go. At that time, Liang Qing Temple was in the middle of Buddhism, and it was crowded with fireworks.
According to the records of Xingtang County during the Qianlong period of Qing Dynasty, Liang Qing Temple was built in Jindading (1161-kloc-0/89), covering an area of 13.7 mu and surrounding land of 164 mu. About 200 meters south of the temple, there are two exquisite small stone pagodas, corresponding to Liang Qing Temple, forming an elegant pattern of Buddhist holy places. Sitting in the temple, there are three halls facing south, which are divided into front hall, middle hall and back hall. Left bell tower and right drum tower in front. The temples are resplendent, the cultural relics are exquisite and lifelike, and everything is a treasure. The north wall of the back hall is painted with the main paintings of three bodhisattvas, and the two sides are covered with auxiliary paintings.
After the completion of Liang Qing Temple, it attracted the attention of dynasties. Many dynasties have repaired and even rebuilt it, making this thousand-year-old temple enduring. There are more than 30 stone tablets in Liang Qing Temple, and the inscriptions record the process of the temple's previous construction, reconstruction and reconstruction, one of which was rebuilt in Ji Chun during Yongle period of Ming Dynasty.
After more than 700 years, Liang Qing Temple enjoys peace and security in the incense.
The pace of history is faltering. 1926 was a year of crisis in the history of China. This year, Japanese imperialist warships sailed into Dagukou and attacked Tianjin. Chiang Kai-shek launched the "Zhongshan Ship Incident" in the south that shocked China and foreign countries. Zhang declared the independence of the three northeastern provinces in the north. Feng Yuxiang's national army went to war with the direct warlords and the gold warlords, and the Northern Expedition broke out in an all-round way ... This country is at a critical juncture of life and death.
Are there finished eggs under the nest? Liang Qing Temple is just a temple. It has become broken and desolate, and its former glory has been empty. It was in this year that the murals of the Three Bodhisattvas were divided into 12, each of which was sandwiched back and forth with window boards used by local people to build houses, and was transported to England and bought by Collins, an Englishman.
Later, the murals of the Three Bodhisattvas were purchased by the collector George Youmofo pallas and donated to the British Museum on 1927. After that, the national treasure was exiled to a foreign land, and soon Liang Qing Temple was razed to the ground by gunfire, and all the cultural relics in the temple were destroyed.
This incident was confirmed in Collins' notes mentioned in the book of Mr. Binyang, a former researcher at the British Museum. He wrote: At that time, there were three temples in Liang Qing Temple, all of which were abandoned. In the first hall, there is a big carved wooden Buddha statue, surrounded by small statues. There is a sitting Buddha in the second hall, with a horseshoe-shaped back screen much higher than the Buddha's. There is a large wooden frame behind the back screen with murals of three bodhisattvas on it. This mural was removed from the original wooden frame and 12 pieces were shipped back to London.
According to records, the murals of the Three Bodhisattvas were created by the monks of Wutai Mountain, and were first painted in 1424, and then supplemented in 1437 and 1468. According to this time, more than 200 years after the Liang Qing Temple was built, the monks of Wutai Mountain began to paint on the wall. Why not draw the temple as soon as it is built? Is this wall always blank when there is no mural? What made them think of painting on the wall after more than 200 years? Is it possible that the records are wrong, and the murals of the three bodhisattvas were painted earlier? The local folk murals were painted by Wu Daozi in the Tang Dynasty. Legends can't be used as a basis, but everything is worth studying and textual research by historians, which may be a long and meaningful topic.
History is complicated, which may be a deeper reflection beyond its artistic value left by the murals of the Three Bodhisattvas. When the country and the nation are in danger, let alone cultural relics, even human life is like dirt. Yesterday has passed, and we have reason to believe that now, when our country stands up and becomes strong, historical mistakes will not be repeated, and we have the ability to protect our people and everything about them.
Hao is copying.
Difficult replication
Mural painting is one of the oldest forms of painting. She covers almost all fields of China culture and becomes an organic part of China traditional culture.
China murals have a long history. Since the Zhou Dynasty, palaces and even tombs have been decorated with murals. During the Sui and Tang Dynasties, grotto murals reached the peak of art, such as Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes and Qizil Grottoes, which attracted worldwide attention. The other most widely used is temple murals, which are painted on the walls of Buddhist temples and Taoist temples, including Buddhist statues, legends and stories, pattern decoration and so on. Temple murals flourished in Han and Jin Dynasties, flourished in Tang and Song Dynasties, and declined in Ming and Qing Dynasties. They are precious wealth in the history of China's national art.
Mural research is an unpopular profession, and suffering and fatigue are secondary. In this fast-paced background, the loneliness of combining life with murals may be the biggest test for people.
In Hao's mind, he is content with this hard, lonely and poor career.
Hao 17 years old embarked on the road of cultural work, and began to contact mural copying at the age of 22. He trudged on this road for more than 30 years. For him, every copy will leave countless unforgettable stories, and the copy of this mural of three bodhisattvas in Liang Qing Temple makes him feel especially deeply.
Mr. Hao and Mr. Wang of Jiangsu Institute of Technology copied the murals of the three bodhisattvas of the temple to the national mural exhibition in just a few months. Hao still has a lot of daily work in the unit. It is impossible for him to finish such a huge project in just a few months in his spare time. He decided to form a creative team.
Teachers Sang Lei and Tai Haoran from Jilin Art Institute, Tian Hongyan from Hebei Normal University and professional painters from Tangshan are all friends of Hao. When Hao told them, everyone said happily, "Let's create together and try our best to create well!" Soon, these backbones and their own students, 26 people formed a copywriting team.
No project funds, no remuneration, printing pictures, making drawing boards, buying mineral pigments and paper ... all these have to be paid out of their own pockets. No one knows what the future painting will look like, and no one will think about the final result. The creative team is fully committed to it with the responsibility of "national treasure" and the love for the cause.
There are more difficulties than expected. First of all, the members of the copying team are distributed in three places, and there is no financial resources and space for them to concentrate on their creation. They can only "divide" the mural into three pieces, draw a bodhisattva in each place, and then adjust it in Shijiazhuang.
It's time to draw, and the second question comes again. It is best to copy the ancient murals according to the original, but none of the members of the copying group have seen the original murals. The photos taken by friends are not particularly clear. It is not enough to understand and portray many parts of murals only by experience. Without solving this problem and painting blindly, it will be difficult to reach the artistic standard of "reducing and copying".
Hao had a hard time getting high-definition pictures for copying. First, I asked my daughter to help him find it online, and then I asked the teachers and friends of the Central Academy of Fine Arts for help, but I couldn't find it. He asked his friend for help, and Bai Xiaohong, a volunteer of Hebei Museum, heard about it and asked his friends in Britain to take photos and videos at the British Museum. Enthusiastic friends went to shoot again and again, but because of the influence of equipment and shooting environment, the clarity of the film is still not enough.
Hao sent a WeChat circle of friends for help. A friend took the initiative to contact him after seeing it, saying that his daughter was studying at the Royal College of Art and could ask her to help with the filming. Hao is very excited He added the girl's WeChat, and instructed the girl to take more pictures of blind shot through WeChat. The girl did as he said. The photo came the next day, and Hao looked at it and became it! This film is clear enough and basically capable!
At this time, it was 2065438+May 2008, and the submission time was less than 3 months. In the studios of Changchun, Tangshan and Shijiazhuang, we started to race against time to create works and draw at key points without sleep. Everyone has dark circles, his face and body are covered with paint and sweat stains, and he has become a colorful painting.
Soon, three murals were copied and collected in Shijiazhuang. Before he could be thankful, Hao discovered the problem: due to different personal understanding, there are obvious differences in color between replicas, and the depth of characterization is different, which is completely different from spelling. It is not easy to make a big adjustment than repainting. Some need to be washed away and redrawn, and some need to find new shapes. In-depth description and repeated comparison again and again, until finally it is exactly the same as the original mural.
Finally, at the appointed time, they finished the mural! The murals of the three Bodhisattvas are reproduced in front of us: the Buddha statue is serene, and his eyes are flowing, as if he were smiling for an instant. Smiling people have seen the world and are waiting for the historical moment to reappear!
From 2065438 to September 2008, "Millennium Murals, Centennial Vicissitudes —— Copy, Dissemination and Display of Ancient Murals and Precious Murals Lost Abroad" toured Chengdu, Taiyuan and Beijing successively, and the three major bodhisattva murals of Liang Qing Temple in Xingtang, Hebei Province were the largest among the touring works! Everywhere I go, I am admired and admired!
After the visit, the members of the copying group discussed that the murals of the three bodhisattvas came from the Tang Dynasty and wanted her to return to the Tang Dynasty. So, they made a decision: donate the replica of this mural to the cultural relics department of Xingtang County for free!
The works that condensed the countless efforts of each of them were donated like this? How is that possible? Many people are puzzled, but this is their decision!
Yang Lizhong, then secretary of the county party Committee of Xingtang, learned that this group of strangers had done a great thing for Xingtang. He felt that this was the best opportunity to polish the cultural business card of the county.
From July 2065438 to July 2009, the county party committee and government of Xingtang held a donation ceremony in Shijiazhuang Art Museum. At the ceremony, Yang Lizhong personally presented 26 creators with bright red donation certificates.
Where do you put such a big mural? Liyang center has a blueprint.
There are many cultural relics in the Tang Dynasty, including 279 immovable cultural relics, and the old county site was also discovered in the Tang Dynasty. After archaeological exploration and excavation by experts, from the late Spring and Autumn Period to the mid-Warring States Period (5th century BC-3rd century BC), there were noble cemeteries, houses and the city sites of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty with northern ethnic characteristics. Thousands of bronze, gold, jade, pottery, mussels and bone horns were unearthed in this site.
It is a good plan to build a museum of the Tang Dynasty on the site of the old county, and to display the murals of the Three Bodhisattvas and the cultural relics of the site, as well as the existing treasures, calligraphy and painting, party history documents and other historical materials in the museum.
202 1, the main project of Xingtang Museum in Shijiazhuang City, Hebei Province with a total construction area of more than 6000 square meters was completed. Only after complete acceptance, can you enter Tibet.
This may be the best story ending at this stage! However, many cultural relics, including the murals of the Three Bodhisattvas, are still drifting overseas, and people in their hometown are doing their best to get them home. Although it's a long way home, the dawn is just ahead. The exhibition and collection of the murals of the Three Bodhisattvas, in a sense, provides a plan for this kind of China cultural relics lost overseas to continue to nourish the people and feed back their homeland, which is of great significance! It may be difficult to return the cultural relics lost overseas, but we can explore and try to make more lost cultural relics return to their homeland in advance in various ways to nourish the Chinese people. (Yang) According to
1. A graded fund refers to a structured securities investment fund that prearranged the risk-return distribution of fund shares,