What are the more prominent Ming Dynasty molding Buddhist grotto carving?

Buddhist grotto carvings formed in the Ming Dynasty, the more prominent Pingshun County, Shanxi Province, is located in Pingshun, Shanxi Province, and Henan Linxian division of the foothills of the Linxian Mountains. There are built in the Northern Zhou Baoyan Temple, after the temple there are based on the cliffs cut more than twenty niches. Most of the statues are made after the Song Dynasty, and most of them are carved in the Ming Dynasty. This is in the history of China's grotto carving and the above Longshan Taoist grottoes is also very rare. Statue content in addition to three-dimensional round carving of Buddha, Bodhisattva, heavenly kings and so on belong to the usually seen, but also in the form of relief story painting "land and water dojo". This is also very special among the statues of Buddhist caves. Regarding the layout of the caves, the shape of the niches, and the coordination of the statues, etc., the article "Bowan Temple Ming Dynasty Grottoes" has given a detailed account. For the cave inscription, inscription text, also made a test. Just all the grottoes statues for the Ming dynasty carved once? On the text of the situation, is still worth studying. As for the 5th cave in the "land and water" relief, on the character modeling and structure with the form, it is indeed the Ming Dynasty production.

"Land and water" relief *** sixty-nine parties, each party's character plot, different, from the point of view of the carving technique, relief and line carving and use, character identity diversity, layout and composition also has a variety of changes, but the carving method is relatively simple, some of the characters' image is also seemingly childish and lack of detailed carving. All of these, may be the characteristics of the Ming dynasty carving performance. The actual land and water relief here, but also only as a notational form of carving, taking a simple and fast way to complete.