Stone Bixie
3 min readStone Bixie is unearthed in Luoyang, Henan, which is a masterpiece of stone carving of the Han Dynasty. It creates the fancy image, but it has realistic signififi cant so that divine beast is portrayed vividly. Stone Bixie bends down, raises shoulders straight and chin up high, spreads wings and stands with curved legs. It glares to look at the sky and roars, which looks mighty. The whole artwork is concisely carved. Partial structure adopts relief or line engraving, which is rigorous and decorative. This artwork intensively shows the powerful charm and elegant dynamics, with mysterious supernatural atmosphere.
Wings of Bixie shows orderly context from the front chest to shoulder, which is not incondite. Array of feather spreads to add the dynamics of this image. This artwork perfectly integrates biological feature and decoration mode.
The Customs of the Han Dynasty
Witchcraft sorcery was popular in the Qin Dynasty and the Han Dynasty. In particular the people of the Han Dynasty believed “Interactions Between Heaven and Mankind”, “Fengshui and the Five Elements”. They followed many taboos in daily life. After death, the deceased “were respected and buried according to the standards in their lifetime”. Nobles fifi red the daily necessities into pottery objects to keep in the tombs. Divine beasts were set up in front of tombs to exorcise evil spirits.
Bixie
Bixie is a divine beat in ancient Chinese myth, which has wings on both sides of the body. It is said to exorcise evil spirits and subdue demons and monsters. In ancient times, it was often carved into stone statue to guard the tombs, temples or ancestral halls.
Stone divine beasts in front of tombs of the Eastern Han Dynasty
In the mid/late Eastern Han Dynasty, stone divine beasts were set up on the paths to tombs of nobles, which can fall into four categories: stone elephant; stone sheep; stone lion and stone winged animal. The stone winged animal includes Tianlu, Bixie, Feilian , etc, which exist in myths.
Stone carving of the Han Dynasty
Many arcs and distortions of the body highlight inner explosive force. The head is like a lion head, which is raised forwards with savage eyes. A pair of horns like antler is on the forehead. A large fierce looking mouth roars with seeming rolling thunder sound. The body is like leopard , which is elastic like the arrow on the bow. Rear limbs stand on the ground to be ready for off.
Strong thigh symbolizes the great power. Protruding bone of the spine seems to contain power. Long tail is hard and powerful, and there are dense patterns on the tail. Thin and stout body is powerful. Sharp paws closely attach on the ground. The shape shows stable trapezium. Stone is major material for Chinese sculptures. Stone carving bloomed up in the Han Dynasty. Such artworks include stone fifi gures and stone beats in front of tombs of emperors, kings, generals and ministers. Stone carving of the Han Dynasty emphasizes vivid and realistic style, with romantic and distorted tints. Main appearance is simple, concise, vivid and complete. Such artworks are often huge. At initial stage, “modeling based on the raw stone” was adopted. In the late Eastern Han Dynasty, with progress in openwork technology, limbs of stone fifi gures and stone beats were entirely carved.
