SOAS Research Online

Abstract

The principal published discussions on and studies of Chinese Buddhist sculpture have adopted a curiously ambivalent approach. General studies on the history and overall development have been presented by Ashton (1924), Omura (1922), Siren (1925) and more recently by Mizuno (1960) and Matsubara (1961). These have attempted comprehensive surveys of the subject and discuss both bronze and stone sculptures. Matsubara confines his study to independent sculptures and omits material from the cave temples. The only study dealing exclusively with bronze images is Munsterberg's Chinese Buddhist Bronzes (1967). In contrast to these general surveys are specific studies devoted to the most important Buddhist monuments. These include Mizuno and Nagahiro on the Yun Kang temples (1951-6) and Hsiang T'ang-shan (1937), and Chinese publications on Mai Chi-shan (1954), Lung-men (1961) and Kung-hsien (1963). All these publications are essentially historical surveys and do not investigate in depth the various relationships and developments which affected the progression of style. One of the most significant contributions in this context is Soper's South Chinese influence on Buddhist art of the Six Dynasties Period' in which the author examines political and social conditions, doctrinal developments and above all elements of sculptural style. During the period under discussion in this thesis when Buddhist sculpture in China developed from the western based styles of the 4th, and early 5th, centuries, through a period of unification under a common native style to the diversification and experimentation of the later 6th, century it was natural that the two principal mediums, bronze and stone, should become involved in similar themes and modes of expression. It is this relationship and its contribution to the evolution and progression of style that is the subject of this study.