By Sherry Mi, IV Form

Suffering in Chinese Buddhism and Italian Christianity: Comparison Between Northwestern Chinese Mogao Grottoes and Italian Christian Artworks

Student-Submitted Note: I conducted this individual research in the Summer. Inspired by my pre-COVID travels to the Mediterranean region, I became greatly interested in European art history while constantly being influenced by Chinese art and culture. My research is a response to my childhood wonder about religious art.

INTRODUCTION

Visual art is one of the easiest ways to communicate, while the spread of a religion depends on the diffusion of its beliefs, which solely depends on communication. For this reason, artists have created countless religious works in the past millennia. Furthermore, the use of religious symbols increased as religions, usually including scriptures, holy figures, and taboos, were systematized. Symbols convey essential religious ideas to the viewers, including suffering.

In my 2020 visit to the Mogao Grottoes in Northwestern China, I also noticed that Buddhist stories of sacrifice and suffering were also one of the most depicted images. Religious beliefs, I conjectured, supplement images of suffering, delivering an important lesson about pain to the followers: Why is pain present? How can one cope with it? Notably, religious art only represents the opinions of its artist, probably on behalf of society, but not God. Opinions may change over time.

I soon discovered that these images were produced inconsistently as the religion evolved. I recorded my discoveries in Buddhist and Christian art in the following analysis. As the religion developed, religious art deviated from images of suffering. The reduction of such images hinted at a transformation of the invisible relationship between religion and society.

What force could drive this palpable change? I noticed similar trends in the development of Chinese Buddhist and Italian Christian art: images of suffering were abundant for one historical period, but declined as the next period began. I also wondered if Buddhist and Christian artists interpreted suffering similarly by making similar artistic choices. This analysis is a possible answer.