What are the characteristics of the mural art of the Dai people?

The Dai murals are a bright jewel in the treasure house of Dai art, which is the crystallization of the wisdom of the Dai people. Most of the Dai murals are Buddhist temple murals, which vividly show the colorful life of the Dai people through Buddhist themes, and to a certain extent reflect the living habits, customs, styles and class relations of the Dai people, and have high artistic value.

The mural paintings of Dai Buddhist temples are characterized by the following: in terms of composition, they break the limitations of time, space and place, and show the ins and outs of a complete story in one picture in a centralized and clear way. At the same time, the composition is appropriately sparse, with a clear distinction between primary and secondary. In the styling of the characters, both the accuracy of the structure and the artistic exaggeration are maintained, with distinctive national characteristics. In terms of presentation, the traditional Chinese painting technique of line expression is adopted, with smooth and lively lines. Due to the bright gold, saturated stone green, stone green, cinnabar, black and other mineral raw materials to fill in the color, and pay attention to the better application of black and white contrast, warm and cold contrast, large color and small color contrast, so that the whole picture appears both bright, but also unified and harmonious, rich in rhythm. In the border decoration of the mural and the decoration of the roof, ceiling, doors and windows inside and outside the Buddhist temple, a large number of modeling patterns of Dai folk paper-cutting art are used. Most of the motifs are peacocks, elephants, deer, horses, grains, fruits, plants, flowers, etc., most of which represent auspiciousness. In the method of depiction, first carved out of cardboard mold, and then as needed with gold or silver paint printed on the walls, pillars, ceilings, and doors and windows with red or black as the background color, most of them are using a separate pattern and bipartite continuous, quadripartite continuous pattern modeling, a strong flavor of the nationalities.