Note: This is a painting produced in the last fifty years by an artist who is presumably still alive. I do not have copyright in any way over this artist’s work. I’m reproducing it here because (a) these images are of ethnographic interest, (b) I’d hope that shining more light on contemporary mural and scroll painters will ultimately be good for their trade, and (c) frankly, these people seem unlikely to sue me. To that last point: It’s possible to commission religious images. If you’re interested in this, write to me and I’ll see if I can set you up with some of the artists I’ve met in this area.
Structure Type: Buddhist Monastery 佛寺, Rock Grotto 石窟.
Location: The monastery is a series of caves cut into a cliff wall, with a stone walkway built along the face of the wall to allow access. Several villages lie up and down the valley.
Period: 1994. The caves were originally cut into the rock wall between 1474 and 1476, at which time it was installed with “all the Buddhas, Kṣitigarbha and the Ten [Yama] Kings, and murals of the [Feast of] Water and Land.” 內造諸佛，地藏十王，壁畫水陸. The site was heavily damaged in the Cultural Revolution, but was repaired by locals between 1992 and 2002. The Water and Land murals were repainted by a local artist named Zhang Yanzhen 張彥珍 in 1994. For transcriptions of the steles, interviews with the artist, etc., see 呼延勝, “陝北土地上水陸畫藝術,” 博士論文, 西安美術學院, 2012, pp.143-52.
Artist: Zhang Yanzhen 張彥珍.
Mural Contents: The most interesting set of murals show the Buddhist Feast of Water and Land, in which all the gods and demons of the cosmos are called down to the altar to partake of offerings and be converted. The location of these murals in a hall to Kṣitigarbha and the Ten Yama Kings makes the funerary function of this rite clear. There are also several other grottoes with shrines with recent murals to Śākyamuni, the Perfected Warrior 真武, etc.
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