Gallery: South Cave at Northern Xiangtangshan

Freer Gallery of Art
Gift of Charles Lang Freer
F1913.67

Charles Lang Freer, founder of the Freer Gallery of Art, purchased this and the limestone head below from a New York City gallery in 1913. Their origins remained a mystery for decades.

Freer Gallery of Art
Gift of Charles Lang Freer
F1913.134

From 2005–2008, the Xiangtangshan research team of the University of Chicago photographed and scanned scores of sculptures removed from the caves. In 2009, the team collaborated with colleagues at Peking University to scan the South Cave at northern Xiangtangshan. Based on the resulting data, missing elements—including this head and the one above it, which were matched to one of the South Cave's altars—could be digitally restored to their original settings. The application of this 3-D imaging technique could be invaluable in future attempts to restore damaged sites worldwide.

These bright yellow heads are three-dimensional printouts derived from digital models of original, sixth-century limestone fragments removed from the South Cave and now held in a private collection. Made of DuraForm plastic, these facsimiles can be accurate down to the finest details, such as surface texture. They make it possible to digitally restore missing fragments to their true locations in the caves.

The facsimiles were produced by the Armour College of Engineering, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, with the sponsorship of Mr. Ralph Wanger, and lent by the Center for the Art of East Asia, Department of Art History, University of Chicago.

Two modern rubbings of a sixth-century engraved stone original,
ink on paper
Freer Gallery of Art Study Collection

The caves at Xiangtangshan were the first in China to include engraved sutras, or Buddhist scriptures, in their overall design. These rubbings are of a passage from the Sutra of Immeasurable Meaning that is cut into the interior walls flanking the entrance to the South Cave at northern Xiangtangshan. Such beautifully carved texts not only enhanced the aesthetics of the space, but also contributed to worship; the words may have been chanted during religious practice. This passage describes in detail the appearance of the "radiant Buddha" as being at the center of a great heavenly assembly. It also declares that the Buddha’s ultimate state is formless, a concept that would have encouraged advanced believers to see a metaphysical world beyond the sculptures in the cave.

Two modern rubbings of a sixth-century engraved stone original,
ink on paper
Freer Gallery of Art Study Collection

The carver of the inscription worked on a smoothed stone wall, transferring the sutra from paper or brushing the text onto the cave’s surface before engraving. This painstaking process was considered a devotional act. As shown in the rubbings above—produced by pounding an inkpad on damp paper placed over the text—the skilled carver managed to capture the flowing quality of strokes originally rendered with a supple brush. One rubbing has a blank circular space where the inscription has been damaged, as seen in this photograph.