It is customary to divide the so-called High Tang period into early stage and late stage. The reason is that different styles characterize the stages before and after around 730. This change is specially prominent in Shensi and Kiangsu Provinces. Among the examples of the late stage are standing Avalokiteśvara of Cave II of Yao-wang-shan, Yao-hsien, Shensi Province, and the five standing images of Niche LXIV of the Ping-ling-ssŭ, Kiangsu Province. They are characterized by the unbalanced proportion with long body and the heavy massiveness. Prototypes of the Amoghapāśa of Hokkedo of the Tōdaiji, Nara, must be works of the style of the begin ning of this late stage. In the late stage, the center of the production of Buddhist image moved from Shensi and Kiangsu Provinces to the capital of Chang-an and marble became popular material. The Bodhisattva (Pls. IV, V) of Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, is an example of this T’ien-pao Era. The author once discussed this sculpture in his paper “T'ang Buddhist Sculpture in the Mid-eighth Century” in No. 31 of the Bijutsushi. According to the author's opinion, the end of the late stage of High T’ang period must be placed at the beginning of 760's. It corresponds to the end of the golden age of the small stele type images which lasted from the beginning of the T'ang period. The sculpture of Middle T'ang which started around 770 inherited the emphasis of massiveness characteristic of the late stage of the High T'ang period, but it not longer keeps the vitality as seen in the late stage of High T'ang. Iconographic cally, works of Esoteric Buddhism appeared. Besides Chang-an. Szechwan Province gradually gained the dominating position. The images of this stage are divided into two types: the type with relatively elongated proportion and the type with short and fat proportion. As the change of the Buddhist sculptural style of the ninth century was very slow and conventional tendency was strong then, it is hard to articulately divide Middle T'ang and the next Late T'ang. But it is presumable that a new style was established when Buddhism was re-autholized af clastic period in Hui-ch’ang Era. One of the most important traits of the Buddhist images of Late T'ang is perhaps the influence of the region to the south of the Yang-tzŭ River.
