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The Relation between the State Ideology of the Northern Wei and Longmen Guyang Cave Represented in the Documents

  • Journal of Studies in Bibliography
  • Abbr : JSB
  • 2006, (35), pp.273~302
  • Publisher : Korean Society of Bibliography
  • Research Area : Interdisciplinary Studies > Library and Information Science

Hyun-Sook Jung 1

1원광대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to find out the relations between politics and art by examining how the important parts of the cultural reforms of the Northern Wei, which copied the Han culture, were expressed in the Longmen caves, excavated after the move of the capital to Luoyang, Henan. At the time the royal family and powerful aristocracy made many donations to make inscriptions in the Guyang cave, the first one in the Longmen caves. In the inscriptions, they used their changed names, made their figures represented as the images of donors, and showed their calligraphic styles in the writings. While the Xianbei aristocracy who did not reform their names yet, kept their multi-syllabic surnames, the royal family changed their name from Tuoba to Yuan. Even after the costume reform, the Xianbei kept wearing their traditional tunics, but the royal family changed the costume from the traditional tunic to the long wide Han dress. The calligraphy exhibits two different regular styles: the strong angular Weibei style and the soft flexible style. The former was inspired by the Stone Classics of the Han and Wei, elected in front of the National Academy at Luoyang, and the latter followed after the Two Wang style which was popular at that time in the Southern Dynasties. This is the result of the cultural reforms in the Northern Wei and the frequent contacts between the Northern Wei and the Southern Dynasties. When the periods and regions were close, the calligraphic styles also gradually changed. However, the Northern Wei of the time was completely different from the Yuan and Qing periods, because the regime itself would like to follow the Han culture. In this respect, the Longmen Statues evidence the close relations between the state ideology and the Buddhist arts which represented the tastes of the royal family and powerful aristocracy of the time.

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