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Latter Days of the Law: Images of Chinese Buddhism, 850-1850
by Marsha Weidner; Sherman E. Lee; Patricia Berger; Richard Kent; Julia K. Murray; Chun-fang Yu; Alan Atkinson
Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas
Scholars
of Buddhism and Chinese painting will find much of value in this study.
Weidner and the essay contributors pull together a vast amount of
information from recent research on Chinese Buddhist painting and
present it in a meaningful, accessible way.--China Review International
Latter Days of the Law: Images of Chinese Buddhism, 850-1850
examines Chinese Buddhist pictorial art made after the religious
persecution of the Huichang era (841-846). This event has long been
regarded as the turning point in Chinese Buddhist history, the end of
the golden age and the beginning of the religion's decline in China.
Accordingly, scholars have paid much more attention to Buddhist art
made prior to the ninth century than to that of later times, except for
the art connected with Chan (in Japanese, Zen) Buddhism, Western
interest in which was fostered by Japanese writers.
Generally, in
studying Chinese painting of the last millennium, Western art
historians have focused on secular works, especially landscape. This
focus not withstanding, fine and diverse examples of Buddhist pictorial
art from this period--ink rubbings, woodblock prints, and pictorial
textiles, as well as paintings--have been acquired by Western museums
and private collectors.
Also acquired were many pictures that, while
not religious images per se, include Buddhist elements and illustrate
the continued importance of Buddhism in the lives of the Chinese
gentry, the scholar-official class.The purpose of this project is to
draw attention to these varied images of later Chinese Buddhism and to
interpret them in light of recent scholarship in the field of Chinese
Buddhist history.
Since the 1970s, historians of religion have offered
more positive views of Chinese Buddhism after the Tang dynasty
(618-907) in addressing such diverse topics as mortuary rituals,
monastic practice, relationships between the secular and religious
elite, and the lives of influential monks.
CONDITION: NEW with light wear to cover from shelving, ie bottom back corner of book creased. 481 pages, illustrated -huge!
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