Study On "Xiang" Of Han Tombs Mural Paintings In The Perspective Of Guan And View

As visual images,the murals of the Han Dynasty tombs present people’s attitudes and imaginations about the world after the death in Han dynasty.That said,compared with the literature records,the murals of the Han Dynasty tombs to a certain extent interpretate the funeral system more directly and three-dimensionally.And researchers can find out their distinct beliefs,cultural traditions and artistic tastes behind the contents and styles of funeral frescoes in the Han Dynasty tombs.However,it must be admitted that the designers of the Han Dynasty tomb murals did not try to convey the history of the time to today’s scholars through these portraits,but to serve die deceased.It means that these visual images are created under a specific subjective purpose(treating the deceased like the living),and what they present are not exactly the same as the reality of social life itself.In other words,the tomb as a special field determines the selection criteria and presentation of the visual images.Futhermore,the style of the image in a certain extent depends on the level of the artists’ skill,but the artists’ choice of the motifs which have special symbolic meanings and the presentation of motifs in the tomb must be meet the intention of the owner(or sponsor)of tombs which turn the tomb into an ideal home after death.When the tomb excavated,the burial murals change from funerary objects to artworks,and funeral frescoes were searched and questioned in the sight of image-view-viewers.In this research paradigm,the researchers avoid a core problem,that is,in the tombs,frescoes were presented visually,but they did not exist as visual images.It means that for a long time,funeral frescoes as objects of observation exist in the shelter.Thus,in the study of tomb murals,we must consider the following three questions:First,who is viewing?Second,what is viewed?Three,how to view?The viewer of the burial murals consist of two categories,namely,the constructors and patrons of tombs and the viewers stood outside the funeral ritual system after tombs excavated.What they view are the murals in the tombs and murals in museums or art galleries.The relationship between these viewers and the funeral frescoes is the relationship between the subject and the object under visual activity.In this visual activity,the funeral frescoes have been gifted the values of religion,politics and aesthetics.Above,images,viewing and viewers belong to the daily language.In the special field of tombs,the funeral frescos are visual images,but they points to non-visual.In this case,Is there a viewer in the underground graves?Or,to be more precise,can the owers of tombs become the viewers of the funeral frescoes?The asking of this question prompted us to redefine the concept of "view" and to show the nature of "Xing"(象)in the tombs which covered by daily languages.The primary meaning of "image"(像)refers to the forms similar to that of object(person),which is differentiated from "Xiang"(象).According to the discussion of the relationship between "Xiang"(象)and "image”(像)in the Book of Changes,the "Xiang"(象)emphasizes the meaning of the figure and emphasizes the existence of "Xiang”as it is.It shows that "Xiang"(象)do not only refers to the shape of the material,but also contains the life which opposites of the shape.In the ritual space of tombs,Han Dynasty funeral frescoes do not prescribed by the form,but as a "Xiang"(象),in a sense of spiritual beliefs,has the ability that can summon the gods.Moreover,in the special ritual order of the tomb,the location of the Han Dynasty funeral frescoes and the specific space of the tomb have a certain relationship,making the tomb present the symbolic meaning of heaven,fairyland and home,completing the construction of "ideal home" for the deceased.For the contemporary viewers,the aesthetic value of Han Dynasty funeral frescoes are magnified.The art style of Han Dynasty funeral frescoes was first noticed by Western scholars.They were most interested in the spatial composition principle of the paintings in Han Tombs,trying to prove these the paintings have experienced the image evolution from two to three dimensional.But color and line,as the most intuitive form of the Han Dynasty funeral murals,are ignored by Chinese and foreign scholars,and both of them undoubtedly are the most attractive.The issue of the color of the frescoes in the tombs of Han Dynasty are summarized as the five-color aesthetic model by scholars.But scholars do not consider that whether the five colors can be called a kind of aesthetic model and wether the color theory coincide with the colour relics in Han tombs.The theory of color has shown a complex and changeable meaning,not only to clarify or construct the ideological system or ritual system of the five elements,but also to become the "anti-color aesthetics" which is given moral value judgments.But the colours in Han tombs are colourful.This shows that from the pre-Qin to the Han Dynasty,the five-color theory does not become the actual standard of the paintings in Han Dynasty.On the contrary,the actual use of the color in Han paintings increasingly pursuit of the beauty of sensibility and vitality.Many scholars think that the brushwork of paintings in Han Dynasty makes a vivid(生动)but not to Shen(神).Indeed,Han painters has never been particularly pursued the appearance of the rhyme beyond images(象外之韵),but only show the ultimate movement of life by line.The image of the cloud and the gallop in Han tombs are extremely simple "conceptualized images",which best embodies the characteristics of the stroke in the Han Dynasty.Although both of them have specific expressions,the lines as the skeleton of "Xiang"(象)set up the life of "Xiang"(象).It is worth noting that color or line which is one aspect of shaped images has been valued by Han funeral frescoes,indicating that color and line in the tombs have the meaning beyond the shape of life and above the meaning of existence.Landscape and portrait as the most themes in Chinese painting have developed in Han Dynasty.The sanctity and ideality are the most important meanings in Han tombs funeral frescoes.And what the landscape,especially the hidden landscape present is the ideal landscape which is beyond the real landscape.In this sense,the hidden landscape and the wonderland landscape image do exist some kind of genetic relationship.The description of portraits in Han tombs are very fine,but these fine facial features are not enough to show the character of the distinctive personality,as if the characters have a highly conceptualized,idealized mask on their faces.Although the painters in later ages pay more attention on Shen(神)and Xing(形)of the character,the character is still hidden between the reality and the ideal.However,the connotation of religious symbols carried by the landscape images and figures in Han Dynasty has been neglected by scholars.Scholars are more inclined to explain the meaning of Landscape and portrait with ideal and individuality of the literati.The excavation of Han tombs have yielded invaluable evidence for advancingindividual branches of historoal inquiry.The use of such evidence in different disciplines,however,also necessarily vitiates the tomb’s cultural and artistic integrity:when the tomb is taken as a deposit of fragmentary information,its own purpose and history becomes secondary.This emphasis on the context of Han tomb funeral frescoes can undoubtedly evoke the primitive and real life of Han tombs murals.However,for Han Dynasty tomb murals,the huge time of the gully makes it impossible for researchers to completely abandon their own horizons into the field of the builder,the sponsor and the ower of tombs.This means that when the scholars emphasize the reduction of the ritual space of the burial frescoes,their prejudices for the style,meaning and spatial symbolism of the burial mural image,and even the understanding of the text,will inevitably affect the reduction of the ritual space and the society of the Han Dynasty.This means that both the emphasis on the context of funeral frescoes of the tombs and the style of the frescoes in the history of Chinese art,may be the key point or foothold to reveal the existence of the burial mural.