Dongxi Qian·Treasure of the Town Hall丨Yu Yanjiao: What kind of cosmology does the T-shaped painting of the Mawangdui Han tomb reflect?

Editor's note:

The beauty of national treasures, through ancient and modern times, is magnificent. Behind each rare cultural relic is the ingenuity and wisdom of the ancients, engraved with the cultural genes of the Chinese nation, and witnessing the exchanges and mutual learning between Chinese and foreign civilizations. From 2023 March 3, China News Service "East-West Question" has launched the "Treasures of the Town Hall" series of planning (20), through experts to explore the meaning of cultural relics and the stories behind them.

Changsha, 3 March (ZXS) -- Question: What kind of cosmology does the T-shaped painting of the Han tomb of Mawangdui reflect?

——Interview with Yu Yanjiao, director of the Mawangdui Han Tomb and Collection Research and Exhibition Center of Hunan Museum

China News Agency reporter Bai Zukai Deng Xia

The Mawangdui Han Tomb in Changsha, first excavated in 1972, is one of the world's most important archaeological discoveries in the 20th century, with a well-preserved tomb structure and rich burial products, which fully reflects the lifestyle and funerary concept of the early Han Dynasty. Among these funerary items, one of the "treasures of the town hall" of the Hunan Museum, the T-shaped painting shows the picture of many auspicious elements derived from mysterious ancient legends and the harmonious coexistence of heaven and earth people on the silk drapery, drawing a magnificent and colorful vivid picture.

As the embodiment of the Chinese nation's concept and thought of the unity of heaven and man, what kind of cosmology does the T-shaped painting reflect? What is the story behind its excavation? What role does it play in funeral ceremonies? Yu Yanjiao, director of the Mawangdui Han Tomb and Collection Research and Exhibition Center of the Hunan Museum, recently accepted an exclusive interview with the China News Agency's "East-West Question".

Video: What kind of cosmology does the T-shaped painting of the tomb of Mawangdui Han reflect? Source: China News Network

The following is a summary of the interview:

China News Agency: As one of the "treasures of the town hall" of the Hunan Museum, how was the T-shaped painting discovered?

Yu Yanjiao: Changsha Mawangdui Han Tomb includes a total of three tombs, which are organized as Tomb No. 1972, Tomb No. 1 and Tomb No. 4 in the order in which they were found, and the tomb owners were Xin Chai, Li Cang, the wife of Changsha State Cheng Li Cang, and their son Li Yan. From January to April 1000, archaeologists excavated Tomb No. <> and unearthed more than <>,<> precious cultural relics, and the remains of the tomb owner were well preserved. According to the level of burial, the artifacts of the inscriptions "Xuanhou Family" and "Xuanhou Jia Cheng", and the private seal of "Concubine Xin Chai", it was confirmed that the tomb owner was Xin Chai, the wife of Xuanhou. Mawangdui Han Tomb is a large tomb in the early Western Han Dynasty with the most complete preserved tomb structure, accurate burial date, precious excavated artifacts, and the identity of the tomb owner recorded in historical books, which is of great significance.

Mawangdui Han Tomb No. 1 Wooden Tomb. Photo by Yang Huafeng

On April 1972, 4, excavators began cleaning the tomb Chinese. They found a T-shaped painted painting on the lid of the fourth inner coffin, colorful and rich, which experts from Beijing considered valuable.

The paintings of more than 2,000 years ago are no longer resilient and have a large format, making it very difficult to fully uncover. After the removal plan is determined, the experts use their own smooth small bamboo pieces to pick up the two corners of the lower end of the painting, and after the painting is removed a short section, the rolled rice paper tube is placed horizontally underneath. As the painting lifts, the rice paper tube slowly rolls forward and rolls it into a large roll. Finally, the excavators put the painting on a plywood covered with rice paper, spread several layers of rice paper on the painting, covered it with a plywood, tied it and fixed it, and transported it back.

T-shaped painting of the tomb of Mawangdui Han. Photo courtesy of Hunan Museum

China News Agency: Why is the T-shaped painting painted? Why is it also called "non-clothing"?

Yu Yanjiao: T-shaped paintings are an important part of funeral ceremonies, depicting portraits of the deceased, hanging from bamboo poles at the time of the funeral to guide them, and covering the inner coffin when burial. Its role is similar to the "Ming Jing" recorded in the "Rites and Rites", and it is a medium to guide the tomb owner's soul to ascend to heaven. According to the records in the tomb, the T-shaped painting is called "non-clothing", "non" and "flying" are connected, and "non-clothing" is "flying clothes", which means that the soul of the tomb owner may wear non-clothes and fly up, so that the tomb owner can be reborn.

The whole picture is in the shape of a "T", wide at the top and narrow at the bottom, 205 cm long, 92 cm wide at the top, and 47.7 cm wide at the end, and is made of three single layers of fine brown silk. A bamboo pole is wrapped horizontally at the top of the painting, and the upper and lower corners are hung with a barrel-shaped ribbon woven with fine cyan twine.

The content of the picture can be divided into three parts: underground, earthly and heavenly from bottom to top. In the underground part, there is a giant with two arms holding "earth" and entangled in red snakes, he is the water god Yujiang, with two whale salamanders intertwined at his feet, and there are "horned monsters" symbolizing hell on both sides.

Part of the T-shaped painting of the tomb of Mawangdui Han. Photo courtesy of Hunan Museum

The middle of the painting is painted with the pattern of "double dragons through the wall", which divides the human world into two parts, upper and lower, and at the same time symbolizes the guidance of the soul to ascend to heaven. The lower level is a scene of sacrifice to the owner of the tomb; The upper floor depicts the ascension of the tomb owner, and in the center depicts a richly dressed woman on crutches, surrounded by three handmaids, facing west, to meet the celestial messenger who greeted her, Lady Xin Chai, the tomb owner.

Part of the T-shaped painting of the tomb of Mawangdui Han. Photo courtesy of Hunan Museum

The heavenly part is painted in the widest place at the upper end, and below there are the heavenly gate guarded by the divine leopard and the heavenly gate guarding the god Diyan. At the middle of the top sits a candle dragon with a human snake tail, and on its left side is a crescent moon, painted with a toad and jade rabbit with a mouthful of Ganoderma lucidum, and a moon goddess below; The right side depicts 9 suns inhabiting the Fuso tree, and the largest of the suns has a sacred bird called "Golden Crow" in the middle, which is actually the sunspot observed by ancient astronomers, that is, the sunspot phenomenon.

The whole painting has a perfect layout, vivid images and bright colors, perfectly unifying myth, imagination and real life, expressing the ancients' imagination of heaven and the fantasy of pursuing eternal life.

Part of the T-shaped painting of the tomb of Mawangdui Han. Photo courtesy of Hunan Museum

China News Agency: As a rare masterpiece in the history of Chinese painting, what are the artistic characteristics of this painting?

Yu Yanjiao: T-shaped paintings have many innovations in composition, line, coloring, etc., mainly reflected in: First, the composition breaks through the previous rigid flat form. The composition of the T-shaped painting is very clever, using the junction of horizontal and vertical as the boundary between earth and heaven; He also used two long dragons that passed through the jade and bi to divide the world into two parts, upper and lower. The whole composition is not only distributed in full width, very full, but also interconnected, some loose and dense, there are masters and slaves, and it does not make people feel cluttered at all.

Second, the lines of the painting change with the object, and the shape needs to be drawn differently. When painting the wide sleeves and drapery of the robe, use threads like silk to express its light and soft texture; When presenting objects, thick and changeable lines are boldly used to express the feeling of sharpness and hardness. The shaping of the character image also moved from the side of the past to the semi-side image, which is an important development of the figure painting method. At the same time, pay attention to highlighting the class characteristics of the characters, such as painting the attendants relatively short, the tomb owner drawing relatively tall, the color contrast is strong, highlighting the nobility of their status.

Xin chasing a staff on a T-shaped painting. Photo by Deng Xia

Third, the paintings are colored, mainly red, white, blue, purple, stone yellow, black, and red and white are the most prominent. When using color, pay attention to the interlacing changes, which enhances the rhythm of the picture. The whole color expression method adopts a combination of decorative style and realistic techniques, such as using sun red, moon white, vermilion, and day horse to express the complex content of the human and non-human world.

From the Warring States figures and dragon and phoenix paintings unearthed in Changsha, to the T-shaped paintings of the No. 1 Han tomb and the No. 3 Han tomb T-shaped paintings in Mawangdui, from the content form to the expression technique, we can see the inheritance relationship of Chu and Han painting art. However, in terms of composition, character modeling, line use, coloring, etc., there were new breakthroughs and developments in the early Han Dynasty, indicating that the art of painting at that time had reached a fairly high level. It is worth noting that from the artist's pursuit of the art and expression method of using line, it can be seen that the characteristics of Chinese painting style are gradually taking shape.

Yu Yanjiao introduces T-shaped painting. Photo by Deng Xia

China News Agency: What kind of cosmology and world view does the T-shaped painting reflect in the early Han Dynasty?

Yu Yanjiao: The so-called cosmology is the overall understanding of the relationship between heaven, earth and people in different eras. The word "universe" first appeared in the discourse of the pre-Qin dynasty, such as the "Corpse" and other documents in the Warring States period, which recorded that "the four sides went up and down the universe, and the ancient and modern worlds". People in the pre-Qin and Han dynasties believed that the universe was not a fixed pattern, but a continuum of changing and flowing time and space, which operated in cycles and never failed. For example, the four seasons of the year, the cycle continues, the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, etc.

The picture is divided into three parts: heaven, earth, and underground, reflecting the cosmology, that is, the world view, of the Chinese ancestors in the pre-Qin and early Han dynasties. The ancients believed that heaven and earth represented the natural world in the universe, heaven was the source of all life, earth was the basis for the survival of all life, and man occupied a central position in it. The Book of Filial Piety's "Heaven and Earth Nature is precious"; "Heaven and earth are born with me, and all things are one with me" in "Zhuangzi Qi Theory of Things"; Lao Tzu's "human law and earth, earth law heaven, heavenly law Dao, Tao law nature" all show that whether it is the four directions up and down or throughout the ages, people are centered, so the pre-Qin and Han dynasties formed a trinity of the universe of heaven and earth.

Tourists visit the T-shaped painting. Photo by Deng Xia

Based on the understanding of the cycle of the universe, people in the pre-Qin and Han dynasties believed that human life was like the universe, death was the continuation of life, and life could be eternal. Therefore, they attach great importance to the continuation of life, first of all, they hope that the living will live as long as possible, and secondly, they hope that the soul of the deceased will ascend to heaven and be reborn, as it is said in the "Li Ji Ji Ji Jiao Special Sacrifice", "the soul qi returns to heaven, and the form returns to the earth". The existence of T-shaped paintings is based on the influence of this concept and thought. The ancients' view of life and death was manifested as the immortality of the soul and transcending death, and the ideal realm they yearned for was "living with heaven and earth, and sharing light with the sun and the moon". (End)

Respondent Profile:

Yu Yanjiao, a second-level research librarian, an excellent expert of the Ministry of Culture, is currently the director of the Mawangdui Han Tomb and Collection Research and Exhibition Center of the Hunan Museum. Mainly engaged in the research of Mawangdui Han tomb cultural relics, ancient jade, gold and silverware, published "Research on Bead Ornaments Unearthed in Hunan", "Research on Jade Unearthed in Huxiang", "Gold and Silver Unearthed in Hunan", "General History of Chinese Jade, Xia Shang Scroll" and other more than 120 kinds of treatises and papers, presided over and participated in more than 10 projects at the provincial level or above, and presided over the planning and participation in more than 100 exhibitions. He is a member of the Jade Professional Committee of the Chinese Society of Cultural Relics, and a part-time (visiting) professor of Hunan University, Hunan Normal University, Hunan University of Science and Technology, and Hunan University of Technology.