Why is Wu Daozi the most outstanding religious painter?

An important type of figure painting in Tang Dynasty is religious figure painting. The most outstanding painter in this field is Wu Daozi.

Wu Daozi (685-785) lived in the prosperous Tang Dynasty. He was lonely and poor when he was young. After studying under Zhang Xu and He, he switched to painting, and his skills gradually spread to be adept at. "Before he was young, he was poor and clever." At the age of 20, he was famous all over the world. When he was wandering in Luoyang, Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty heard his name and became a court painter and a doctor. Tang Xuanzong also changed his name to Daoxuan. Chinese-style Buddhist painting was finally formed in the hands of Wu Daozi, who was revered as a "painting saint". Folk painters of past dynasties have always regarded him as the "founder", and Taoism has even called him "Wu Daozhen Jun" and "Wu Zhenren". Scholars and painters also admire him very much. Su Shi juxtaposed Wu Daozi's paintings with the poems and calligraphy of Du Fu, Han Yu, Yan Zhenqing and others: "As for poetry, as for writing, as for beauty, as for painting, as for Wu Daozi, the world can be finished!" A generation of grandmasters has a long reputation.

Wu Daozi lived in the heyday of Tang art, and Li Bai, Zhang Xu and Pei Min shone at the same time. Different art forms can often learn from each other. Wu Daozi's painting was once combined with Zhang Xu's calligraphy and Pei Min's sword dance, which made an artistic story. On one occasion, Wu Daozi followed Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty to Luoyang, the eastern capital, and met Pei Min and Zhang Di. Pei Minzhi wants to invite Wu Daozi to create a mural in Luoyang Tiangong Temple to bless his deceased relatives. Wu Daozi was unmoved by gold and silk, but he hoped Peimin could dance a sword for him and see his heroic spirit, so that he could spend money. Pei Min immediately agreed and danced with swords. His fencing is unpredictable. Wu Daozi was very excited after reading it, and he improvised to paint on the wall of the temple. With the help of God, the pen flew like a fly, whispering for a moment. Later, Zhang Xu wrote a book with weeds on the wall. Thousands of spectators feasted their eyes and excitedly praised: "You will get three miracles in one day!" This legend not only proves once again that different art categories are of the same origin, but also implies that Wu Daozi's paintings have the same aesthetic taste as Pei Min's sword dance and Zhang Xu's cursive script.

Wu Daozi is good at painting Taoist and Buddhist figures, as well as birds, animals, plants and pavilions. His pen and ink create wind and are magnificent. Religious painting is the most successful part of his painting. The religious murals of more than 300 rooms he painted are vivid, and none of them are the same. In addition, he also painted the round light of the Buddha statue, the beam of the building column and the blade of the bow, that is, he could draw the round light on the head of the Buddha statue without auxiliary tools such as a ruler. In the early years, the strokes were thin and dense, but in middle age, they became vigorous. His greatest contribution to the art of painting is the development of "line drawing" and the creation of lines such as "water shield strip" and "orchid leaf map", which has raised the traditional line drawing technique in China to a new level and endowed "line" with richer expressive force and modeling ability. The lines he draws are very rhythmic and vary in thickness. The lines are round, like "water shield strips". It is a wonderful thing that there is a gap between painting and painting from time to time. Later generations called his and Zhang Sengyou's paintings "dispersing wind" to distinguish them from those of Gu Kaizhi, Lu Tanwei and Gu Zhuo. He also likes to use Jiao Mo's hook line to draw characters, and then slightly render the color, light ink spots, which is meaningful. Such paintings are not as colorful as ordinary religious paintings, but they have a unique taste because of the power of lines.

Wu Daozi's religious painting method with simple colors, whether fine painting or rough painting, pays attention to the unity and dynamic performance of the overall picture atmosphere when using different expression techniques, revealing the effects of "the sky is flying, the wall is in the wind" and "the pen is in the spirit". The clothes folds of the characters he painted tend to flutter and fluctuate, just like dancing in the wind, so it is called "Five Dynasties when the wind prevails", and its painting method is called "Wu Jia sample", also known as "Wu Zhuang". This title is often compared to "a grass comes out of water" in the history of painting. They represent two different painting expressions. The so-called "out of water" refers to the painting method of Cao, a famous figure painter in the Northern Qi Dynasty. From the form of expression. The characters painted by Wu Daozi have loose clothes, strong lines and fluttering belts, which stand up like the wind. The wrinkles of Cao's characters' clothes are tightly attached to their bodies with a fine pen, as if they had just come out of the water. Cao Shi's painting method is traditional iron line drawing, while Wu Daozi's painting method is his unique Wu line drawing. Comparatively speaking, Wu Zhi's lines are more sporty and three-dimensional, which may be related to his early experience in practicing calligraphy. Most of the characters he painted have a certain three-dimensional sense, so the characters are vivid and lifelike. "Hu Ziyun covers, feet fly." According to legend, the picture of hell he painted was described as "there are no so-called sword forests, prison houses, bull heads, horse faces, green ghosts and red people in the picture, and there is a kind of Yin Qi that attacks people, which makes the viewers shudder", causing the viewers to fear, and some people even dare not eat meat again. Although the picture does not depict anything horrible, it can have such a strong appeal and make people feel emotionally shaken, which shows that its brushwork is ancient and unique.

Wu Daozi painted religious paintings at first, and later Wu Zong destroyed the Buddha. Affected by this political activity, all the temple murals dedicated to the Buddha were destroyed. After this robbery, less than one tenth of Wu Daozi's works remain. Mi Fei collected Wu Shouzi's works all his life. As a result, "Bai Shou only saw four original works", but there were as many as 300 fakes! It can be seen that imitating Wu Zong and Wu Zhifeng is prevalent. According to the Song Dynasty's "Xuanhe Painting Spectrum", hundreds of years have passed. During the Song Xuanhe period, there were 93 scroll paintings by Wu Daozi in the court. At present, there are 39/kloc-0 pieces of paintings, inscriptions, paintings, poems and calligraphy, oral paintings and overseas relics related to Wu Daozi. The original murals in Wu Daozi are no longer visible. The existing papers are copies of later generations, but they have both form and spirit, and they are also considerable. Therefore, from some existing works, we can still really feel the charm of the "Five Dynasties Party Style". The map of Vimalakīrti in CaveNo. 103 of Mogao Grottoes is considered as his work. The recognized representative works of Wu's paintings include the picture of the heavenly king sending his son, the volume of the immortals on August 7th, the statue of Confucius, the Bodhisattva, the Ghost Bo and so on. Handed down from ancient times, there is a picture of the heavenly king sending his son, also called the birth picture of Sakya, which is the story of the birth of Sakya, the son of Sudoku King. It is now in Osaka City Art Museum, Japan, and has been handed down as a copy of the Song Dynasty. It was painted by Wu Daozi according to the Buddhist sutra Ruiying Benqi Sutra. As a famous painting of Buddha's birthday, we can see that Buddhism was introduced into China from India, and gradually merged with China culture from the end of Han Dynasty to the prosperous Tang Dynasty. The characters in the painting have been deeply localized, no longer with sunken eyes and dark faces, but completely China, such as Dharma. As a Chinese painting, the "orchid leaf map" derived from the "iron line" indicates the beginning of a new era of line drawing. The picture of the heavenly king sending his son is unique in conception, magnificent, profound in technique and complicated in utensils, which has a far-reaching influence on later religious paintings, especially Buddhist and Taoist murals.

However, it is said that Wu Daozi's painting skills are excellent, but his personality and teaching quality are poor. He didn't want to impart his unique skills to his disciples. As soon as he drew something harmful, he closed the door and kept his disciples away. As a result, he had to explore for himself. In his later years, there was a famous Huangfuzhang who was good at drawing ghosts and gods. Almost passed him, so he bought a murderer to kill him. It's hard to say whether it's true or not. As unofficial history, let's talk about it after dinner.