從西域之神到東土隱士──唐宋維摩詰圖題詩之衍變

From a God of the Western Regions to a Hermit of the East: The evolution of the Vimalakirti figure of the colophon poems in Tang and Song Dynasties

During the High Tang period, Vimalakirti-themed paintings by Gu Kaizhi and Wu Daozi were the most popular. Patterns of the figure's movements and facial expressions had become stabilized by then, and layouts of these paintings often represented features of the divine world. Poets often interpreted such images of Vimalakirti with the reverence for a sage. Since the mid-Tang, exemplified by Bai Juyi, poets liked to compare themselves to Vimalakirti and transform their lives in his image through their poetic composition. Selfpresentations in poems and portraits often patterned themselves on scenes or the figure's behavior in Vimalakirti-themed paintings. In this way, Bai's image as a Vimalakirti type hermit of Xiangshan took form. People of the Song Dynasty were often influenced by this artistic approach. Accepting and developing the Vimalakirti elements in Bai Juyi's image, they further secularized and Sinicized Vimalakirti's artistic image in their ink-wash paintings and encomium poems, reduced its religious and exotic features, and had it combined with the image of the Hermit of Xiangshan. This cultural phenomenon was also shared by other East Asian civilizations. Localization of Vimalakirti's image can also be observed in poetry and paintings of Japan and Korea. This is especially the situation in Japan: since there were relatively more Vimalakirti-themed ink-wash paintings and encomium poems surviving from early period, the localization process can be clearly traced.