painting; banner; 繪畫(Chinese); 幡(Chinese) BM-1919-0101-0.136

Period:Tang dynasty Production date:851-900 (circa)
Materials:silk, 絲綢 (Chinese),
Technique:painted
Subjects:bodhisattva lotus canopy cintamani 菩薩 (Chinese) 蓮花 (Chinese) 華蓋 (Chinese) 如意寶 (Chinese) flaming jewel
Dimensions:Height: 71 centimetres Width: 17.50 centimetres

Description:
Banner painted with a bodhisattva standing on a lotus under a canopy and holding a cintamani (flaming jewel). The triangular headpiece has survived, but not the streamers. Ink and colour on silk.
IMG


Comments:EnglishFrom Whitfield 1982:Numerous Bodhisattvas, some differing only in detail, are preserved in both the Stein and the Pelliot collections. As they hung from a triangular headpiece, they could twist and turn, to be seen from either side. The close similarities between such figures have led to the suggestion that they may have been traced from the same original. In some cases paper stencils must have been used: one actually found at Dunhuang and now in New Delhi is described as being of a Bodhisattva, with all the details drawn in, leaving a border at the edge, and the main parts then cut out (Stein Serindia, Ch. 00425,p.999). Such a stencil was clearly quite different from the pricked pounces preserved in the British Museum (Vol.2, Pls. 78-80) and was probably more suitable for transferring a design to silk.The present painting is very close to Stein paintings 122 and 125* (Fig. 94 and Pl.43). The chief impression gained from it is that of the opaque, bright colours, and of the continuous black ink outlines of the drapery. Especially prominent is the white of the narrow sacrificial thread and of the knotted sash, twisting and turning over the petals of the lotus pedestal. The outlines are precise and unbroken. By the use of contrasting colours, e.g., red for the outer border of the sleeves and green for its lining, they tend to divide the drapery into alternate narrow strips of colour, a mannerism that will be carried even further in the wall paintings of the Song and Yuan, for example in the fourteenth-century paintings of the Yonglegong 永樂宮. The figure of the Bodhisattva is heavy and majestic. The Samantabhadra of Pl.12 is altogether more approachable, partly as a result of its softer outlines, partly because of its more restricted use of colour and of line that is more descriptive of the underlying form than assertive of a prescribed pattern. A period of as much as a century may lie between the execution of the Mañjusrī and that of the present Bodhisattva and its companions. ChineseFrom Whitfield 1982:斯坦因和伯希和的收藏中保存了很多菩薩像，只是細節上有一些差異，當它們從一個三角形的幡頭垂下來，可以旋轉和翻動，兩面的內容都可以看見，這種極大的相似性在這樣的肖像之間暗示著他們原先的出處是一致的，在一些場合中，一定是使用了紙印模：一個在敦煌發現的，現藏新德里，被描寫成的菩薩所有的細節都畫出來，在邊上留了一條邊界，其主要部分被切掉了(斯坦因,《西域》,Ch. 00425,p.999)。這樣的印模很明顯與大英博物館收藏的pricked pounces有很大區別，更適合用於把圖案印在絲綢上。現在的畫非常接近斯坦因的畫122和125(Fig.94、圖43)，從中得到的主要印象是不透明的，明亮的顔色，以及布料的連續的黑色墨外沿線，尤其突出的是白色的很窄的，作爲奉獻的絲線和打結的綬帶，紐結和翻轉在蓮花座的花瓣上，外沿線是精確的和連續的，運用對比的顔色，例如衣袖外邊沿線用紅色，衣袖本身用綠色，他們企圖把布料分成顔色變化的窄條，這種特殊的風格到了宋元的壁畫就更加明顯，例如14世紀永樂宮的繪畫，菩薩像厚重而且宏大。而圖12的普賢菩薩像卻容易親近的多，一部分是因爲它的輪廓不那麽鮮明，一部分是由於它使用了更少的色彩和線條，比僵化的規定形式更加靈活，由於沒有使用固定的模式，使他的身體更清楚地表現出來。那幅普賢菩薩像和本圖的菩薩像等之間，約有一個世紀的間隔。