Religious Art & Worldviews · Artists
The Tang muralist whose temple walls made crowds gasp — the sage of painting in Chinese tradition, whose work survives in copies and in legend.
Tagged: Painting Medieval Liturgical Iconic Mural Painting Daoism
Wu Daozi painted the walls of Chang'an's temples and palaces with assemblies of gods and hells so vivid that viewers pressed money at the door. He is the patron figure of Chinese religious mural painting, and no autograph work survives: everything is copy, tracing, and testimony.
The pictured Eighty-Seven Immortals scroll is presented as attributed to him, in the line of copies through which his compositions descend — the honest label for a master whose originals are thirteen centuries gone.
References
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