Zhang Fajiang’s Stone Avalokitesvara

[Zhang Fajiang Stone Avalokitesvara]

Zhang Fajiang Stone Avalokitesvara, the second year of Yongxi in the Northern Wei Dynasty (533), 35.5 cm high
Guanyin wears a columnar flower vine crown on her head, with a square circle on the face and ornaments on her chest. The two ends of the Pei and silk cross in a double U-shape at the front of the knee after crossing the shoulder, and then fold back at the elbow and hang down, bare the chest and drag the ground skirt. Guanyin holds an object in her left hand and a lotus bud in her right hand. She stands on the lotus round seat with double petals. Behind Avalokitesvara is the back light with the flame pattern carved in the shape of a boat. The head light is concentric and round. The bottom of the Guanyin statue is a plain cuboid base, and the back of the base is engraved with “On October 16, the second year of Yongxi, Zhao Caosheng’s wife, Zhang Fajiang, made a jade statue of Guanyin for the dead, relatives, and Hansheng, and so on, so remember it.” The inscription reads: In the second year of Yongxi (533), Zhao Caosheng’s wife, Zhang Fajiang, made a statue of Guanyin for her son, family, and all other living things, and is hereby remembered
The statue is one of the early works of the white stone statue in Quyang, with distinctive characteristics of the times. From the perspective of shape, Guanyin has a large head, a flat chest, a slightly bulging abdomen, and an upright and stiff body, which is slightly short. From the perspective of clothing, the two sides of the body of Guanyin Pei and silk are extravagant, giving people a sense of floating. This kind of movement just adjusts the defect of the upright and rigid body shape, and is attached with the carving of the object in Guanyin’s hand and the backlight behind it, which greatly improves the overall visual effect of the statue. When the ancient Quyang sculptors created the single Avalokitesvara statue, they skillfully used the combination of static and dynamic expression techniques to make the white stone statue more unique and attractive in style
The statue was unearthed at the site of Xiude Temple in Quyang, Hebei Province in 1954