Spiritual Travel in Chinese Landscapes ---- Travelers Among Mountains and Streams and Murals from Yulin Caves

Abstract

Chinese landscape painting is a non-negligible category in Chinese art history. Unfortunately, the intrinsic fragility of silk results in an obscure provenance of numerous existing silk landscape paintings from ancient Chinese art. Murals in Yulin Caves, located in the northwestern province of Gansu, China, emerge as an invaluable repository that complements these delicate silk paintings. This paper selects The Illustration of Samantabhadra from Caves 29 and 3 of Yulin Caves, both illustrations in caves were created after the Song Dynasty (960-1279 CE), to compare Travelers Among Mountains and Streams (Travelers) painted in the 10th to early 11th century by Fan Kuan (c. 950-1032). The visual comparison involves the panoramic view and the travel theme. The comparison based on the different mediums will discuss the elimination of physical constraints through painted landscapes with the contextualization of murals in situ. Natural light will also be considered as one external factor that influences the artwork viewing experiences of audiences. Comparisons involved in this paper aim to examine the underlying relationships between Song landscape paintings and the subsequent landscape murals, extend the conventional concept of travelers in Song landscape paintings by identifying mountains in murals, and explore how landscapes in silk paintings and murals encourage audiences to experience spiritual travel.