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BRYNLEE BARKER

Honestly, no city can beat Shanxi in this hall of colored sculptures

Such destructiveness, immense oppression, and extremely mutated limbs, overturn the traditional pursuit of beautifully detailed statues. All of this gives a dreamy, surreal feeling. These abnormal expressions push the majesty of the Twenty-Four Devas to the extreme of fierce beauty. The ancient sculptors pursued the ultimate in clothing detail. Every scale on the warrior's armor, every detail of the decoration, whether interlaced or overlapping, had to be presented in detail. The head is adorned with complex stacked floral patterns, with crowns and ribbons fluttering and soaring. Shanxi National Treasure Essence·Gaoping Iron Buddha Temple Ming Sculpture of the Twenty-Four Devas, photographed by Li Jinchun. P1 Mahabrahma, with a highly individual image, seems tailor-made for the fierce artistic style of this colored sculpture. The figure is robust, with dark green skin and strong muscles, a large and a small head, and a six-armed warrior image. With a wide mouth and sharp teeth, glaring and roaring like a lion; hair flying in anger, flames shooting in all directions; wearing a battle skirt and barefoot on the ground; the two arms raised, the left hand holding a club, the right hand holding a ruler. Among them, the most characteristic are three: one is the large and small heads, three faces and six arms. Coupled with the furious expression, bloodshot eyes, angry red hair, developed muscles, and exaggerated actions, it has the grandeur of a Ming King that seems to swallow mountains and rivers. P3 Guangmu Tian's image is unique, with a frowning and fierce look at first glance, which is daunting. He wears a high crown decorated with gold dragons, red flowers, green leaves, and other exquisite ornaments, with a dragon-snake-shaped flame pattern behind the crown. Wearing war boots; chain mail, green chest wrap, red waistband, white protective waist, with various belt ornaments hanging from the waist; shoulders, chest, abdomen, wrists, and knees are adorned with dragon-head-shaped protectors. P4 General Sanzhi, Mr. Li Zehou once described the fierce beauty of the Shang Dynasty bronze Taotie. 'Despite being very rough and even fierce and terrifying, it still retains a great aesthetic charm. In that intimidating and mysterious fierceness, there is a deep historical force.' The General Sanzhi statue seems to awaken this 'fierce and terrifying' from ancient times. His full and robust body, with legs apart and belly thrust forward, presents a metal tripod-like solidity and stability. In the deep and dim hall, the entire statue exudes a mysterious and oppressive coldness from ancient times. Next is the fierce facial sculpture. The greenish-yellow, dark bronze face is an extremely strange and fierce set of features. The dark green vertical eyebrows are like the patterns on the body of a tiger or leopard, and the exaggerated open mouth reveals two rows of striking fangs. The short and thick neck, the towering brow bone, and the red hair flying like flames on the head make the statue's face bizarre and fierce, with extremely spasmodic and mutated limbs. The twisted right thumb seems to be the tendons caused by extreme anger, and the bear-paw-like fierce and wild strength of the hands and feet, with the toes spread open like eagle claws digging into the ground, gives a sense of stepping on stones and leaving marks, grabbing iron and leaving traces.
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*Created by local travelers and translated by AI.
Posted: Apr 4, 2024
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