Ch'en Hung-shou's "Elegant Gathering": A late Ming pictorial manifesto of Pure Land Buddhism.

详细信息   

• 作者：Tsai ; Hsing-li.
• 学历：Doctor
• 年：1997
• 导师：Li, Chu-tsing
• 毕业院校：The University of Kansas
• 专业：Religion, General.;History, Asia, Australia and Oceania.;Art History.
• ISBN：9780591797510
• CBH：9827494
• Country：USA
• 语种：English
• FileSize：12587418
• Pages：291

文摘

Ch'en Hung-shou's Elegant Gathering (Ya-chi t'u), a handscroll in the Shanghai Museum of Art, can be read as a pictorial manifesto of one of the most significant cultural developments of the late-Ming period: the widespread acceptance of Pure Land Buddhism among intellectuals. The scroll presents a monk and eight scholars, including the Kung-an School literary theorists Yuan Hung-tao (1568-1610) and his brother Yuan Tsung-tao (1560-1600), gathered around a figure of a Buddhist deity in a garden setting.;The subject of this picture has been identified as a meeting of the Grape Society, a club organized by the Yuan brothers in Beijing in the last years of the sixteenth century. In this dissertation, however, I argue that this work neither represents the Grape Society nor falls within the familiar category of literary meeting pictures. Rather, it treats a theme with special meaning for the artist and patron of the scroll as well as for the individuals portrayed, namely a shared belief in Pure Land Buddhism. Collectively, they represent the two generations of the lay Buddhist movement led by the two Pure Land masters, Chu-hung (1535-1615) and Chih-hsu (1599-1655).;The composition can be linked to the most famous painting inspired by a Pure Land gathering of laymen and monks, The Lotus Society, by the Northern Sung Master Li Kung-lin (ca. 1041-1106). A more immediate source of inspiration, however, was undoubtedly Yuan Hung-tao's Hsi-fang ho-lun (Comprehensive Commentary on the Western Paradise).;Investigation of Ch'en Hung-shou's other Buddhist paintings further elucidates the artist's embrace of Buddhist teaching in art. Often shared by these works is the concept of nonduality, the Buddhist teaching most attracted the late-Ming intelligentsia. These works not only display the intermingling of literati and Buddhist activities as the daily experience of a late-Ming intellectual but also visualize the prevalent intellectual intercourse between the late-Ming Buddhist masters and lay Buddhist literati.;Ch'en Hung-shou's Buddhist paintings, as a whole, is representative of the cultural consequences of late-Ming revival of Buddhism. They offer us examples of the parallel developments in art and thought of late-Ming China. The concurrent secular and Buddhist traditions as well as the incorporation of Confucian elements into Buddhist paintings evidence the thorough sinicization of Buddhism by the late Ming. Elegant Gathering, in addition to expressing the concept of nonduality, identifies the Pure Land practice as a way to attain the ultimate goal. It can be read as a pictorial document that highlights Yuan Hung-tao's significance as a lay Buddhist in late-Ming history and affirms his contribution in the propagation of Pure Land Buddhism through Hsi-fang ho-lun. At the same time, it can be perceived as a pictorial manifesto in which Ch'en Hung-shou and the patron advocated their Pure Land beliefs on behalf of Yuan Hung-tao and in which they voiced their full agreement with Yuan Hung-tao's Buddhist beliefs addressed in the book. In a broader sense, this handscroll can be seen as a microcosm which represents the late-Ming lay Buddhist movement and signifies the overwhelming popularity of Pure Land Buddhism among Chinese intellectuals.