CHINA ARQUEOLOGIA golden-age-chinese-archayeolog

the better-known developments in the art of painting
during this same period. Other than Wang
Chuzhi's tomb, the most dramatic demonstration of
this new, high standard can be seen in the extensive
program of Buddhist sculpture and painted stone
reliefs created during the succeeding Song dynasty
(960-1279 CE) at a cave-temple site near Chengdu
in Dazu county, Sichuan province. 7
Buddhism, with its constant need for the
creation of new and more elaborate stone-carved
cave-temples across China, had traditionally been
the main impetus behind pictorial stone sculpture,
but the national persecution of Buddhism in 845
brought an end to the great cycle of such construction
and expansion. Private efforts to rebuild in
the aftermath of that great tragedy began with such
projects as the new temple site at Dazu in the late
ninth century, but the rapid decline and end of the
Tang dynasty and its breakup into numerous small
states and kingdoms prevented further development
until much later in the Song period, after
reunification in 960.
It is possible that the marked advances in tomb
design and decoration in the tenth and eleventh
centuries owe something to the displacement of
so many painters, sculptors, and craftsmen in the
aftermath of the Buddhist persecution of 845.
The Buddhist Church only began to regain some
of its lost power and influence well after 960 and
the establishment of the Song dynasty. The Dazu
cave-temples, most of which were completed
during the Southern Song period (1127-1279 CE),
testify to its recovery, but even they are not as impressive
as the painted stone reliefs in the tomb of
Wang Chuzhi. RB
1 Illustrated in Yang 19973,112 -113.
2 In the National Palace Museum, Taipei; reproduced in
Palace Museum 1961, no. 10.
3 The section of the scroll, now cut into four parts, that
includes the musicians is reproduced in Blunden and
Elvin 1988, 202-203. See also Fong 1992, 34-39.
4 Hebei 1996!), 28. Separate groups of male and female
musicians depicted in multiple panels of painted, carved
brick are the main feature of the tomb of Feng Hui
(d. 958), Yang and Yan 1994, 48-55. Another male band
found in a Liao tomb dated 1116 and a female band from a
Baisha tomb dated 1099 are reproduced in Laing 1988 -
1989, figs. 41, 42.
5 Shaanxi 1996, 6.
6 Especially noteworthy in tomb decoration is a set of
painted, carved brick reliefs found in the tomb of Feng
Hui, excavated in Binxian county, Shaanxi province (cited
in note 4 above). Su Bai 1957, plate 22, illustrates another
painted relief panel said to be made from carved brick set
into a plaster wall that was found in a Baisha tomb dated
1099. Many other examples of relief sculpture dating to
the Jin dynasty are reproduced and discussed in Laing
1988 -1989. A complete survey and analysis of Song tombs
has been conducted by Kuhn; see, for example, Kuhn 1994,
11-159.
7 Dazu 1984.
5*3 TOMB OF WANG CHUZHI AT XIYANCHUAN