The painting (Ch. liii. 001) which this Plate successfully reproduces
in colours, on the scale of three-eighths of the original, is a good
representative of the small but interesting class of what may be
designated as simplified Paradise pictures. We see in it Amitābha
enthroned on a lotus between Avalokiteśvara and Mahāsthāma, with two
lesser Bodhisattvas in front and a row of well-individualized disciples
behind. No lake is represented; but a comparison with the painting
represented in the next Plate, XI, with which ours shares a number of
marked peculiarities in composition, style, colour, and treatment,
suffices to show that a representation of Amitābha’s Heaven is intended.
Amitābha is seated with legs interlocked and his right hand raised in
the usual _vitarka-mudrā_. His flesh is yellow shaded with red which
has changed to a curious iridescent mauve; his hair a bright blue. His
mantle, vivid crimson, is wrapped round both shoulders, its drapery
reproducing all details of the arrangement which Graeco-Buddhist
sculpture had borrowed from Hellenistic art and handed over to be
stereotyped with hieratic convention in the Buddha figures of Central
Asia and the Far East. The lotus, his seat, is raised on a high stepped
pedestal and has its pink petals covered all over with beautiful floral
scrolls in white, blue, and black. Similar rich scroll-work adorns the
base of the pedestal and reappears on the canopy which hangs above
the Buddha’s head, raised on two trees. Their stems are treated like
jewelled poles, and their large star-shaped leaves are arranged in
whorls enclosing conical clusters of red fruit. An Apsaras sweeps
down on either side, scattering flowers; her floating garments and
the gracefully curling clouds which support her express rapidity of
movement.
Avalokiteśvara and Mahāsthāma occupy well-designed, if less
ornate, lotus seats, the former raising a flaming jewel in his left
hand and the latter an alms-bowl. Among the multicoloured jewellery
with which they are bedecked, the Dhyāni-buddha set in front of the
tiara may be mentioned. Below them are seated two lesser Bodhisattvas,
in similarly rich dress and adornment, the one, in profile, holding
a red lotus, the other, in three-quarters profile, a flask. Their
foreshortened elliptical haloes in green and the transparent light blue
stoles deserve notice.
A particularly interesting element is introduced into the celestial
company by the six disciples ranged behind the triad, three a side
in ascending tier. They all have the shaven heads of monks and plump
solid features; but their alert faces are well individualized and the
expression markedly varies, from the jovial smile of the second figure
on the right to the serious and even severe look of the last on the
left. It is specially regrettable here that, as in so many of our
paintings, the cartouches above the different divine figures have not
been filled in. The red lotus bud carried by the last disciple on the
left and the priest’s staff in the hand of the corresponding figure on
the right do not help to identify them, nor do the crossbars on their
mantles. The haloes of all these figures, including those of the triad,
are only outlined in narrow rings of red and white, the interior being
shown as practically transparent—not a usual treatment.
Below Amitābha’s lotus seat, and partly covering the front of its
pedestal, is the panel for the dedicatory inscription, in the form of
a stone slab with a low arched top, carried on the back of a tortoise.
Unfortunately the dedication was never inscribed, and we are thus
left without means for exactly dating this interesting picture. But
very valuable help in this direction is afforded by what remains of
the figures of the donors in the bottom corners. That of the man on
the right is lost, except for the top of his cap. But that of the
wife kneeling on the left is complete and a figure of great charm. It
is manifestly a portrait, painted with considerable skill, and was
deservedly chosen by M. Petrucci for full-size reproduction in the
Vignette of the present publication.
The lady kneels on a mat, her hands holding a long-stemmed red flower.
The pose and face admirably express pious devotion. The delicate
treatment of the features distinctly recalls that of female heads in
a silk painting, unfortunately very fragmentary, which I recovered in
1915 from a seventh-century Chinese tomb at Turfān. The lady’s costume,
with its pleated skirt high under the arms, small bodice with long
narrow sleeves, and little crossover shawl, as well as her hair plainly
done in a small knot on the neck, represent a fashion distinctly older
than that to be seen in the donatrices’ figures of our earliest dated
picture (see Pl. XVI) of A.D. 864. We find the same indications of
an early date in the dresses and coiffures worn by the donors and
donatrices in the silk painting Ch. xlvii. 001 (Pl. XI), which shares
many peculiarities of our picture, and also in the undoubtedly ancient
embroidery picture shown in Plates XXXIV, XXXV.[16]
This chronological observation lends special interest to a notable
point of technique, the use of ‘high lights’ to bring out the modelling
of the flesh, in addition to ordinary colour shading. This is very
conspicuous in the faces of the monkish disciples, and equally striking
also in most of the figures in Plate XI, but it cannot be traced
elsewhere among our Ch‘ien-fo-tung paintings. The western origin of
this system of modelling has been duly emphasized by Mr. Binyon.[17]