金维诺

High and low members of North Wei Imperial government believed in Buddhism, primarily establishing merits and virtues and building temples. Sculpture creation in Maiji Mountain in Qinzhou during this period was very popular with splendid decoration also surpassing the past.

Emperor Xiaowen, Yuan Hong, adopted various reforms of promotingfeudalization and sinicization. Yuan Hong was expert at literature, had passion for reading, read extensively"Confucian classics" and "History", was good at discussing Lao Zi and Zhuang Zhou, especially proficient in paraphrase. Under his establishment and leadership, paraphrase was greatly prevailing.In north areas, meditative dharma was attached importance to, not reading scripture intentionally.Some only knew sitting in meditation and reading scripture. Since Emperor Xiao Wen's advocating paraphrase, till Emperor Xuan Wu and Emperor Xiao Ming, scripture translation and forum discussion were very popular, which influenced reforms to themes and images of Buddhist statues to some extent. After Emperor, Tai He's reforms, some changes occurred to Buddhist modes of North Wei Dynasty, which was the same with South Dynasty's attachment importance to scripture paraphrase causing mold of Buddhist images, even directly influenced by Buddhist statues of South Dynasty.

Large quantities of statues, remained in Maiji Mountain, manifested artists' achievement in modeling images: the created meditative statues with eyes drooping and sitting silently, calming down with a dignified appearance showed non-fettered and amiable state of mood; they were seemingly lost in thought, while the stretched appearance showed the understanding of thought; light graceful and restrained flying Apsaras were lovingly pathetic; figures in Buddhist history and maintained portrait were also lively. Kings were serious and smart, children were naive and vivid, and women were pretty and elegant.Male attendants were honest and sincere and lady's-maids were devotional graceful. Among artistic artisans' created Buddhist statues, life made himself self-consciously or non-self-conscious model human, feelings and thought he knew. Clothing of single clay sculpture was soft and decorous while clothes of figures of Buddha were various and full of changes. Smooth clothing frilling not only was to make relationship of clothing and body and changes of clothing, but was beneficial to behavior of human expression. Art in Maiji Mountain though was largely identical but with minor differences in theme with other Buddha relics, it had its own character, especially color sculpture tortuously and abundantly reflected its experienced contemporary and local climate and favor.

北魏朝廷上下奉佛，以建功德造像立寺为主。正像杨衒之在《洛阳伽蓝记》中所说：“王侯贵族，弃象马如脱屣；庶士豪家，舍资财若遗迹。于是招提栉比，宝塔骈罗。争写天上之姿，竞摹山中之影。金刹与灵台比高，高殿共阿房等壮。岂直木衣绨绣，土被朱紫而已哉”。如宣武帝元恪立瑶光、景明、永明诸寺。瑶光寺有五层浮图，去地五十丈，尼房五百余间；景明寺“东西南北五百步，前望嵩山，少室却负帝城，青林垂影，绿木为文，形胜之地，爽垲独美山，悬台观光盛。一千余间复殿重房，交疎对溜。青台紫阁，浮道相通。虽外有四时，而内无寒暑。房檐之外，皆是山池松竹，兰芷垂列阶墀。含风团露，流香吐馥”。宣武之弟文献王元怿所立景乐寺，“有佛殿一所，像辇在焉，雕刻巧妙，冠绝一时。堂庑周环，曲房连接，轻条拂户，花蕊披庭。至于六斋，常设女乐。歌声绕梁，舞袖徐转，丝管寥亮，谐妙入神。以是尼寺，丈夫不得入，得往观者，以为至天堂”。秦州麦积山这一时期雕造之盛，装饰之富丽，也超过以往。

秦州地处甘肃与陕西、四川交界的地带，一直是丝绸之路和蜀道的交汇点，南北僧侣途经秦州传经送像者不绝于途，而官宦文人也经常来往于此，因此麦积山石窟的发展和北朝文化及南朝文化都有密切关系，而尤具南朝特色。公元428年，太武帝俘赫连昌于上邽，北魏始占有天水。这时麦积山石窟也开始进入鼎盛时期，现有北魏窟七十多个，占现存洞窟的百分之四十。麦积山北魏造像有前后之分。……