The Evolution of Pictorial Hagiography in Chinese Art : Common Themes and Forms

摘要

This article discusses the way that the earthly lives of Chinese gods and sages are represented in literary and artistic media. It focuses on the development of pictorial conventions for representing key hagiographical features, such as an unusual conception, birth, and childhood feats. The origins of the iconography are traced to two different but complementary sources : indigenous accounts of gods' lives in ancient Chinese literature, and imported visual imagery of the life of the Buddha. A variety of Chinese depictions of the Buddha's life are examined, and it is suggested that they became a model for treating other gods' lives. By the fifteenth century, certain elements appear to have become so standardized that they constituted a template by which any deity's life might be conceptualized. Ming Buddhist temple murals and woodblock-printed illustrations may have helped to disseminate the hagiographical model more widely. In addition to the Buddha, the article examines serial illustrations of the lives of Houji, Laozi, Lü Dongbin, Wang Chongyang, and Confucius in some detail.