ÉTUDES CHINOISES Revue de l’Association française d’études chinoises Vol. XXXVII-2 (2018) Zhu Pinyan* Avalokiteśvara in Gold: Art and Ideology at Contemporary Baodingshan Résumé – Le 13 juin 2015, la statue restaurée de l’Avalokiteśvara aux mille mains et aux mille yeux de Baodingshan fut officiellement inaugurée devant les visiteurs de la ville de Chongqing (Sichuan). Datée du xiie siècle, cette œuvre brille aujourd’hui de mille feux. Cette restauration tape à l’œil a suscité de nombreuses critiques. Or comme l’ont fait valoir certains, on était aussi intervenu lourdement sur cette statue religieuse durant les dynasties Ming (1368-1644) et Qing (1644-1911), en la recou- vrant d’or et de nouveaux pigments pour protéger la pierre très abîmée. L’article qui suit vise à étudier les motivations qui ont mené à cette restauration. Il montre que d’une part cette action datée de 2015 témoigne de la surveillance continue des activités religieuses et culturelles locales par le gouvernement, et d’autre part que ses enjeux différent sensiblement de ceux des périodes historiques précédentes. La restauration s’est appuyée sur l’idée que la statue de l’Avalokiteśvara devait être reconnue comme œuvre d’art. La statuaire de Baodingshan se distingue des autres sites bouddhistes anciens par le fait que ce sont des lettrés chinois et non des étrangers qui l’ont décou- verte et qu’elle illustre un style chinois indigène. Cette idée sert de fondement à la transformation du lieu en un site patrimonial. Les instances gouvernementales locales et nationales ont vu dans ce chantier une occasion de mettre en valeur les qualités artistiques d’une image religieuse locale, qui dans le même temps, pouvait générer des profits et susciter un enthousiasme patriotique. On June 13, 2015, flocks of tourists crowded the Hall of Great Compassion (Dabeige 大悲閣) at Baodingshan 寶頂山 in Dazu, *u PinyanZh is a PhD candidate at the University of Kansas, The Kress Foundation Department of Art History. Études chinoises, vol. XXXVII-2 (2018) 84 ZHU Pinyan Chongqing. On that day, they bought their tickets, walked down a broad and newly paved road, and finally entered into the crescent valley where weathered yet spectacular statues carved from the living rock would fill them with awe. A short distance from the entrance, inside the wooden Hall of Great Compassion, a colossal Thousand-Handed, Thousand-Eyed Avalokiteśvara image carved in high relief was offi- cially unveiled to welcome visitors after seven years of conservation (Figs. 1 & 2). 1 Sculpted in the twelfth century, the statue is now covered in glittering gold and vibrant colors. Broadcast via television and the Internet, the lavish conservation work shocked audience members nationwide, unleashing a wave of public debate from online forums, social network sites, talk shows, and state-sanctioned academic journals and newspapers. A popular criticism is that the conservation work has stripped the sculpture of its historical value. Even Guangming ribao, the party-led official newspaper, acknowledged critical public reactions when it reported on the “new life” of the Avalokiteśvara at Dazu. 2 In 2015, for the purposes of both justifying and celebrating the conservation work, Shijie yichan 世界遺產 (World heritages), a journal published by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, dedicated half an issue to this topic. Therein, Liu Shuguang, the director of Chinese Cultural Relics Research Institute, stated in an interview that the application of new pigment and gold was necessary for protecting the heavily dete- riorated stone statue, and that adding substitutes for missing fingers was especially appropriate for conserving the “Buddhist artwork.” 3 1. Li Yun 李韻, “Chongqing dazu qianshou guanyin ying ‘xinsheng’” 重慶大足 千手觀音迎“新生” (The Thousand-Handed, Thousand-Eyed Avalokiteśvara welcomes a “new life”), Guangming ribao 光明日報, June 14, 2015. http:// epaper.gmw.cn/gmrb/html/2015-06/14/nw.D110000gmrb_20150614_1-04.htm (accessed 24 September, 2019). The updated number of hands is also from this official resource. 2. Ibid. 3. Liu Shuguang 劉曙光, “Quchu binghai wei shouyao, benti baocun shi guanjian, tiqu xinxi shi genben: Zhuanfang zhongguo wenhua yichan yanjiuyuan yuanzhang Liu Shuguang” 去除病害為首要，本體保存是關鍵，提取信息是 根本，專訪中國文化遺產研究院院長劉曙光 (Eradicating Damage Cause as the Priority, Preserving the Body as the Key, and Collecting Information as Avalokiteśvara in Gold 85 The goal of this paper is to use historical and contemporary visual and textual materials to explore the motivations behind the govern- ment decision to conserve the statue in such lavish manner. To this end, I will start with a brief discussion of the differences between the methods of conservation proposed early on and those on display in the final result. The discrepancy suggests a determination to finish the conservation project despite obvious obstacles. One justification from official accounts is that the statue underwent multiple resto- rations over the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing dynasties (1644-1911). Thus, it is suggested that the most recent project is well in line with the statue’s history, albeit realized with more advanced technology. In my opinion, the conservation project of 2015 has a different agenda from those previous works, and yet what remains unchanged is the government insistence on supervising religious and cultural activities at the site. What sets the 2015 project apart, as I will go on to discuss, is the assumption that the twelfth-century Avalokiteśvara should be recognized as a work of “art.” This conceptual designation is an accumulative result of scholarly discourse starting in the 1910s and still figures predominantly among the seemingly diverse voices in the current debate. Two narratives differentiate the Baodingshan sculp- tures from those at other famous historical Buddhist sites: that it was Chinese rather than foreign scholars who made the discovery, and that the Baodingshan sculptures represent an indigenous Chinese style. 4 I will demonstrate that the nationalistic rhetoric lends support to the government participation in the conservation project. Investing in conserving and re-gilding the statue, both the Chongqing and national government took the conservation project as a chance to re-emphasize the Basic Approach: An Interview with the Director of Chinese Cultural Relic Research Institute, Liu Shuguang), Shijie yichan 世界遺產, 2015, no. 6, p. 84. 4. For the publication of the site, see Yang Jialuo 楊家駱, Zhonghua minguo sanshi sinian Dazu Tang Song shike liuqian erbai shiliu qu de faxian 中華民國三十四年 大足唐宋石刻六千二百十六軀的發見 (The discovery of 6,216 Tang and Song stone carvings at Dazu, in the 34th year of Republican China), Taipei: Institute of Chinese Learning, China Academy, 1968, p. 4. Chongqing dazu shike yishu bowuguan and Sichuan sheng xinwen tupian she, Dazu Shike 大足石刻 (Stone carvings of Dazu), Hong Kong: Zhonghua shangwu lianhe, 1985, pp. 1-32. 86 ZHU Pinyan the artistic merit of a local religious image, which would both generate economic interest and galvanize patriotism. The Unrealized Conservation Plan The sculptures at Baodingshan comprise three groups, namely the Large Buddha Bend, the Small Buddha Bend, and some large-scale carvings on exposed rocks at nearby mountains. Zhao Zhifeng 趙智鳳 (b. 1159) was believed to be the person who spearheaded the construction, established the Shengshou Monastery in the Small Buddha Bend, and dedicated the site to the veneration of a Tang-dynasty (618-907) layman, Liu Benzun 柳本尊 (d. 907). 5 The focus of the recent conservation efforts, the Thousand-Handed, Thousand-Eyed Avalokiteśvara is located in the Large Buddha Bend and frequented by tourists today. Entering the Large Buddha Bend from the south, a tourist would walk coun- terclockwise, for thirty or forty meters, on a path next to gigantic open-air cliff-carved reliefs of disparate Buddhist icons and themes, which seem to culminate in an imposing relief illustrating the Wheel of Reincarnation as well as an eight-meter-tall triad consisting of a standing Buddha and bodhisattvas. Entering a more enclosed area, the visitor finally arrives at the Hall of Great Compassion, opposite a cliff-carved depiction of the recumbent Buddha and his followers in a Parinirvana scene. 6 Among these similarly historical sculptures, the Thousand-Handed, Thousand-Eyed Avalokiteśvara was the only one sheltered in a structure and singled out for conservation. Despite the advantage of not having been exposed to the ele- ments, the conservation of the statue is still a particularly challenging project. The seated figure has 830 arms radiating outward from the body, each hand holding an object. In addition to the main figure, 5. Angela Falco Howard, Summit of Treasures: Buddhist Cave Art of Dazu, China, Connecticut: Weatherhill, Inc., 2001, p. 71. For the plan of Baodingshan by Zhao Zhifeng, see pp. 1-2. 6. Karil Kucera, Ritual and Representation in Chinese Buddhism: Visualizing Enlightenment at Baodingshan from the 12th to 21st Centuries, Amherst: Cambria Press, 2016, p. 35. Avalokiteśvara in Gold 87 four smaller standing figures, and two kneeling, are also included in the project. According to the conservation report published in 2015, in small trials, the conservators removed the multiple layers of crumbling gold foil, which were glued to the sculpture over the centuries, stabilized the stone base with a layer of base material and lacquer, and reapplied the original cleaned foil to the surface (Fig. 3). 7 However, after the conservation work was finished, the entire statues were covered with shiny and smooth new gold foil. It seems that what was feasible on small laboratory samples did not work on the scale of the main statue. Moreover, while the conservators repeatedly emphasize the technical difficulties involved in that work, they give no explanation for the discrepancy between the 2015 report and the final result. In my opinion, these technical difficulties do not justify the controversial results, because the decision-makers could easily have chosen to minimize their alterations or halt the project altogether, 8 and thus I would like to ask why the conservation work continued despite predictable challenges.