著者

熊谷 宣夫

雑誌

美術研究 = The bijutsu kenkiu : the journal of art studies

巻号頁・発行日

no.191, pp.1-27, 1957-03-30

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The Shin Saiiki-ki, record of the Central Asian expeditions by the Ōtani Mission, states that the Reverend Watanabe Tesshin, during the first expedition, discovered on July 9th, 1906 a wooden cinerary casket covered with gold leaf (Fig. 1) at the ruins of a temple on the west side of the River Subasi in Kucha, East Turkistan. The record, however, does not give any description about the casket which has remarkable paintings in colours. Paul Pelliot excavated several specimens of similar caskets of wood at the same spot. In Kizil west of Kucha, Le Coq found another with colour paintings (Fig. 2). The casket under discussion, brought back by the Ōtani Misson, is likely also from Kucha, or somewhere around. Compared with the above-mentioned specimens, the subject piece (Pl. I & Fig. 4) is the most elaborate work, and the motifs of its paintings are rich in variety. Fig 3 show its scaled sketch. Like other specimens, it has a conical cover and a cylindrical container, but this is the only example with the surface covered with hemp cloth. The hemp base is coated with the priming of gofun (white pigment of calcium carbonate obtained by heating), over which contours are drawn in black ink and colours are put within them. The entire surface is subsequently coated with a transparent oil. It is to be noted that this is only example finished in this elaborate technique known in Japan as mitsuda-e ("litharge painting"). This casket, however, have heretofore been left unnoticed, for the paintings are concealed under stripes of blue, vermillion and grey pigments painted over them, the borders being covered with square pieces of gold leaf. The cover has four medallions enclosed in pearl-lace patterns. One of them, herein called a, contains the figure of a winged cherub with a yellow body, blowing a vertical flute. The second one, b, is a green cherub playing the biwa (lyre with pear-shaped body), with four pairs of scarves fluttering on his sides instead of wings; c shows a cherub like a, playirg a kugo (harp); and d is a cherub like b, with a musical interument which appears to be a genkin (lyre with round body) (Cf. Pl. II). Between a and b, and c and d, are each a couple of a parrot and a yamadori (a type of pheasant), with thier necks bent backward and holding either end of a jewelled ribbon in their beaks. Between b and c, and d and a, are the same paired birds, with their necks in ordinary poses and respectively holding something like sprays of trees in their beaks (Fig. 5). Such designs of cherubim are found also on one of the caskets brought back by Pelliot, and on the bronze bowl from West India (Fig. 9) published by A. Coomaraswamy. The cherubim on this casket have shaven heads, with some hair left on the foreheads, temples and vertexs. Examples of this characteristic head ornament antedating this piece are found in the murals at Site 3, Miran; after the present piece, there are examples in painting at Turfan and around (Fig. 6). Angelic figures with scarves instead of wings have earlier example in applied ornaments on terra-cotta objects from Khotan (Fig. 7), etc.; later ones are relatively numerous, for example, those in Turfan painting. The pearl-lace patterns on this casket so characteristic of Sassanian art, in comparsion with those on the broacde from Astana (Fig. 8a) whith boar's-head design, the mural on similar subject in the cave temple at Toyuq (Fig. 8b), the mural of ducks in the cave temple at Kizil, etc., are characterized by the existence of the four square buttons which suggest a later period. In this respect they are closer in age to the brocade with similar patterns from Astana. The sides of the container are ornamented with twenty-one figures of dancers and musicians, from the two banner-bearers, A and P, through C, D, etc. to U counted anti-clockwise (Cf. Pls. III & IV). C to I and S are dancers performing the Gigaku dance, wearing masks and distinctive costumes. Such surface decorations with sences of dance and music, as found also on terra-cotta pieces from Khotan (Fig. 10), must have been derived from those of Bacchants, and obviously contain Hellenistic elements. The examples on the subject casket, however, are vivid descriptions of the manners of Kuchú in those times. For instance, the form of the banner-poles, with their heads shaped like the handles of walking sticks, is in common with those in the wall-painting at the Murtuk cave temple arves (Fig. 11); the masks also have their kin in a fragment brought back by the Ōtani Mission (Fig. 14). The kugo (harp), too, is not bow-shaped like those frequently found in wall-paintings at Kucha and rather rarely seen in Kizil (Fig. 12), but is of the type similar to the one seen in murals at Kara-Khoja (Fig. 13), which was later introduced to Japan through T'ang China. From the above-mentioned viewpoints, we are led to think that the design on this casket reveals influence from Inida or Sassanian Persia, which, however, are flavoured with Eastern elements. The same can be said of the techniques of painting. The contouring black lires of the yellow-bodied cherubim, for example, are flanked by paralleling vermilion lines, the two thus forming double contours. This means that the kumadori ("shading", band of gradating colour running along contours) has here become a line. Because the same technique is emyloped in the wall-painting at Kara-Khoja (Fig. 16), the wall-painting from Turfan brought by the Ōtani Mission (Fig. 17), etc., the style of this painting should be dated in the later part of the Kucha period, namely the seventh century. It is interesting to note that this painting holds proof to the statement of Hsian Chuang, the T'ang priest who visited Kucha at the time : "The music and dance of Kucha are better than those of any other country I have visited." Excepting the wall-paintings, nearly no extant specimen of painting in Kucha is known to date. The author is happy with the opportunity of introducing this rare casket as well as a painting on hemp brought back by the Ōtani Mission (Fig. 15).