Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v2.c11.s4.t3.28

v2.c11.s4.t3.28

Yang Huizhi (being active from 713 to 741 CE) was a Chinese sculptor in the Tang Dynasty. He once studied painting with the contemporary painter Wu Daozi, and together imitated the paintings of Zhang Sengyou, a painter in the Liang era of the Southern Dynasties. But he was not as famous as Wu Daozi, thus he firmly made an effort to specialise in sculpture. He also absorbed the spirit of Zhang Sengyou in the field of sculpture and thus Yang Huizhi’s sculpture can compete with Wu Daozi’s painting. People at that time said, “Wu Daozi’s painting and Yang Huizhi’s sculpture captured the magic strokes of Sengyou.” It is recorded that he molded many statues of Buddha, bodhisattva, Arhat, vaisravana, lay Buddhists, and painted girls in Chang’an (present day Xi’an), Luoyang and other places, and created in the sculpture the image of thousand-hand and thousand-eye Avalokitesvara. He also wrote a book - *Sculpture Skills*. All of these works have been lost.