1 The silk painting of the tomb is T-shaped, with the upper width of 92 cm, the lower width of 47.7 cm and the total length of 205 cm. The picture is complete and the image is clear. It depicts the scenes in the sky and underground from top to bottom. Many auspicious patterns are depicted (6 dragons, 3 tigers and 3 deer 1 phoenix 1 immortal). There is a head snake in the middle of the top of the upper section, which stands out from the crowd, probably the great god Candle dragon; At the top left of the painting, the sun is inside, and below it are pterosaurs, hibiscus and eight smaller red dots, which are close to the ancient decameron myth. The upper right corner opposite depicts a woman flying back with a crescent moon in her hand. The crescent arch surrounds the toad and the jade rabbit, and there is a pterosaur cloud shadow under it, which should be the scene of the tomb owner's ascension to heaven. Below the snake head, there are monsters riding animals and priests hanging side by side in a symmetrical gate. Two leopards climbed on it, and they sat hand in hand, depicting the scene of Tianmen. Under the canopy and winged birds in the middle part, there is a profile of an old woman walking slowly with crutches. In front of it, there are two people kneeling to meet, followed by three maids. According to the characteristics of clothing and hair accessories, and compared with the unearthed female corpse, it may be the image of the tomb owner. There are two long queues through the wall in the lower section. There are symmetrical statues of leopards and birds and beasts with heads on the jade wall, and there are gorgeous curtains and a large jade yellow on the jade wall. There is a tripod, a pot and a folding ear cup under the Jade Emperor, with seven people standing on both sides, which is a feast for the owner of the tomb. This scene is supported by naked Lux standing in circles on two giant whales, surrounded by long snakes, big turtles, owls and sheep-shaped monsters (see the color picture [silk painting of the Han tomb Mawangdui 1 (unearthed in Changsha, Hunan Province in the Western Han Dynasty)].
A silk painting unearthed from Tomb No.3 is similar in size, shape and content. These two silk paintings systematically show the cosmic picture in people's ideas in the early Han Dynasty, drawing on a large number of images in ancient myths and describing the realm of communication between heaven and earth according to reality. Before the silk painting was unearthed, it was placed on the wooden boards of two tombs and coffins. It was a banner used in funeral ceremonies to express evocation and burial after guidance, also known as "non-clothing". So the theme is that the soul ascends to heaven, and the characters in the painting are marching on the road to "heaven". The sun and the moon are in the sky, and the music is ringing. Dragons, leopards, birds and jade are all symbols of good luck and protection.
A silk painting, 212cm long and 94cm wide, found on the west wall of Tomb No.3 depicts a grand ceremony of horses and chariots. There are two rows of figures on the upper left, surrounded by civil and military officials wearing crowns, robes and swords, marching forward, with five high platforms in front of the queue; On the lower left is a square of more than 100 people, and in the square is a band beating gongs and drums; There are 4 rows of Hummers on the upper right; There are more than 14 riders in the column *** 100 at the lower right. The figures, chariots and horses in the painting all face the direction of the tomb owner. Some people think that it depicts the scene of the oath society and the holy land of farming, while others think that it depicts the ritual ceremony of the tomb owner as a military general according to the fact that most of the paintings are soldiers and chariots. There is also a silk painting on the east wall of the same coffin room, which is the same size as the two walls. Due to the serious damage, it is difficult to distinguish the whole picture. According to the images of buildings, chariots and women rowing in the fragments, it is speculated that they depict the home life of the tomb owner.
Another silk painting unearthed from Tomb No.3 is about 100 cm long and 50 cm high, depicting four rows of ***44 people. The characters are men and women, old and young, with simple clothes and some bare upper body. All the movements of the characters are fitness movements called "guidance" at that time, with different postures and lifelike. According to the movements of the characters and the inscription beside them, we can know that this is a painting with a range of movements, and it is named "Guide Map".
The excavation of Mawangdui's silk painting filled the blank of the silk painting in the early Han Dynasty, and also showed that it was the characteristic of this period to absorb the artistic connotation, style and image mode of Chu in the pre-Qin period. Many mythical images in T-shaped silk paintings are consistent with the description of Chu Ci, which is related to the modeling of Chu art. At the same time, a new creative method of observing reality is also developing. The silk painting on the west wall of Tomb No.3 gives a factual description of social activities.
It is especially obvious in T-shaped silk paintings to integrate the thought and imaginary scenery into rational composition. Complex individual images are arranged as a whole, flexible and orderly. Draw the inward movement of two pterosaurs and hold this colorful part tightly; Two long dragons in the middle section are H-shaped. The head of the dragon is divided into the tomb owner and his entourage. There is a spacious space in the center of this picture, which makes the image of the tomb owner stand out in the dense picture. The dragon tail partially closed many images in the lower part and promoted the natural transition of the realm. Taking four dragons as the composition, the whole painting shows the rhythm of "opening and closing" up and down, with balanced changes from left to right, and the images set each other off and become interesting, reaching the height of two-dimensional plane painting style. The silk painting on the west wall of Tomb No.3 is divided into regions, which makes the basically static figures and riders have a movement trend because of the change of the direction of the queue. The inner modeling of the rider on the lower right is a new expression technique.
A considerable number of figures in silk paintings provide the characteristics of early painting figures, and the head accounts for a large proportion of the human body. Depicting the whole side of the tomb owner is helpful to express its image characteristics and has the nature of portrait painting. Line is the basic modeling method of all paintings, which rhymes smoothly with the change of thickness. Coloring methods are mainly flat painting after cross-marking, partial rendering, and a few directly draw images with colors. The picture is based on vermilion, earthy red and warm brown, and uses rich colors such as azurite, gamboge and white powder to obey the unified tone, resulting in a strange, gorgeous and warm effect.