The Influence of Cultural Exchanges along the Silk Road on the Development of Large Stone Portraits in Ancient China

Abstract

The stone portraits discussed in this paper mainly refer to round carvings and high-relief sculptures of human figures that emphasize realism and a sense of three-dimensionality. The development of stone portraits in the pre-Qin period is briefly reviewed, and their cultural characteristics and causes are analyzed from various perspectives. The Neolithic period was not too late for the germination and start of Chinese portrait sculpture. Due to a series of factors such as geographical conditions, material selection, and cultural philosophy, the development of stone portrait sculpture was not given much attention before the Han Dynasty in China, and the development of realistic round and high-relief portrait art with larger volumes lagged. Along with the exchange and collision between civilizations along the Silk Road, thanks to the widespread dissemination of Buddhist statue art in China since the Wei and Jin Dynasties, the art of large stone statues has taken on a new artistic appearance in terms of subject matter, techniques, types and uses, and has also gained a broader space for expression. Chinese stone portraits have continued to develop and innovate in terms of subject matter and sculpting techniques, and eventually formed an artistic style of portrait sculpture with distinctive national characteristics. This practice of transcending the secular and divine portraits also led to the maturation of secular portrait sculpting techniques such as Stone Wengzhong (翁仲), objectively opening another channel for the diversification of ancient Chinese portrait sculpture. It can be said that the cultural exchanges along the Silk Road had a very important role in promoting the development and maturation of ancient Chinese large stone portrait art.