In China's ancient Tang Dynasty sculpture what is meant by the combination of divinity and humanity

Simply put, it is the combination of reality and ideal or realistic and imaginative

Tang Dynasty sculpture, is a cultural heritage with a long history, culture and deep heritage, there are Dazu stone carving art, Xi'an bodhisattva standing statue, the Longmen Grottoes, the six steeds of the Zhaoling Mausoleum, the water and land nunnery and other exquisite representative sculpture.

Chinese religion is actually a traditional system of initiatory philosophy? , Confucianism seeped into Buddhist Zen. The essence of Confucianism is practical rationality, everything from me, start from the side, in the ordinary and natural life, to seek the purification of the mind, do not need to enter the "Kingdom of Heaven" to reach the "other side" as the Western Buddhist thought. Because of the formation of this Chinese worldly thought, the religious fervor of the whole nation was not formed. Coupled with the conservative and introverted character of the agricultural country, the view of this life and this world is down-to-earth, not excited and not fanatical. This also shows the powerful transforming effect of Confucianism. Especially in the arrangement of the sculpture group structure, reflecting the characteristics of Chinese. Such as the sculpture in the sequence of inferiority and superiority is a reflection of the hierarchical concepts of China's feudal dynasty, but also the traditional Chinese moistening philosophy ultimately prevailed over the nontraditional out of the world philosophy of empirical evidence, both Buddhist sculpture art to the secular and the life of the performance of the complete integration. This characteristic is manifested in the sculpture art of Song Dynasty, which, in contrast to the non-discursive gods of the Northern Wei Dynasty and the non-dominant gods of the Tang Dynasty in the past, appeared to be secular gods. Song sculpture portraits are specific and realistic and intimate, a reproduction of a realistic style, and it shows the gradual decline of religious fanaticism in China. So when you walk into the completion of this social transition of the Song dynasty grottoes in Dunhuang, you will feel is no longer the art of religion but the real human life, even the pure form of the pattern is also a reproduction of secular life. Northern Wei pattern of active jumping, Tang Dynasty pattern of free stretching all gone, there are only standardized dull back to the text, the whole scene is a cool, poor, powerless, stagnant feeling. Song dynasty sculpture has no religious enthusiasm, and the lack of deep thinking, China's religious sculpture art at this time to decline.

In short, the history of hundreds of years of Chinese Buddhist art as a chaotic whole treatment is not feasible, the important thing is to analyze and explore the history. In religious sculpture, with the change of time and society, there are different aesthetic standards and ideals of beauty:

The Northern Wei Dynasty sculpture to the "ideal" to win, higher than the life on earth; the Tang Dynasty to the "ideal" and "reality" combination of the "ideal" and "reality".

Bei Wei sculpture to "ideal" to win, above the life of the world; Tang Dynasty to "ideal" and "reality" combination to win; Song Dynasty to "reality" to win. This is with the times of life and the beauty of the ideal change **** Ming.

So it can be seen that the artistic style of Buddhist sculpture is with the development of the times, the progress of history and the continuous evolution. Just as Buddhism was transformed from Indian Primordial Buddhism to Chinese Zen thought. Buddhist sculpture also evolved from the depiction of God in the Wei and Jin Dynasties to the Song Dynasty's copying of people, which is also a reflection of the dilution of people's religious ideas and deepening understanding of nature.

Sheng Tang Dynasty sculpture works of art appeared in a profound reflection of the life of the times and the spiritual outlook of the works in the artistic style, the pursuit of ideals and methods of real unity with each other, simple and simple regularity of the treatment and vivid and real performance of unity. And can be seen in each part of the sculpture and each sculpture of the group of sculpture of the unity and coordination and was particularly emphasized out of the sense of unity.