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Art of the Non-Western World

Chapter 8: China

Chapter Learning Objectives

Recognize stylistic characteristics, media, and technologies from key periods in Chinese history.

Understand how Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism influenced the development of Chinese art.

Describe the impact of the period of Communist rule, The Cultural Revolution, and the Post-Mao liberalizations on the art in modern China.

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Neolithic China (c. 18,000 – 2,000 BCE)

Between the sixth and third millenniums BCE several advanced pottery-making and stone-working cultures appeared in China.

Early potters were producing fine hand-built ceramics in a variety of forms, some of quite large size, and decorated with incised or painted designs featuring geometric and organic motifs.

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Yangshao Miaodigou type, c.3900-3000 BCE. 4in high x 8 in. diameter

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8.1 Yangshao Miaodigou type, c.3900-3000 BCE. 4in high x 8 in diameter (10.16 x 20.32 cm), negative painted brown pigment on buff clay. Collection of the National Museum of China, Beijing. The matt surface of Yangshao pottery is a result of the use of pigment inks rather than clay slips. Professor. Gary Lee Todd, Sias International University, Xinzheng, Henan, China

The Yangshao and Banpo terracotta wares were found in burials, suggesting that they were ritual rather than utilitarian or everyday vessels.

Yangshao pottery offers a wide variety of forms: amphorae, pedestal bowls, jars, and pitchers.

Although hand-built, Yangshao coil-constructed and scraped vessels are astonishingly symmetrical and thin walled.

Decoration was done by brushing red and brownish-black mineral “inks” onto a cream clay body, resulting in a flat matte finish.

The most common designs were geometric patterns but occasional stylized human, animal, and floral motifs have also been found.

The Painted Earthenware Jar shows a remarkable symmetry of form and uniformly thin walls, indicating that the artists who made this vessel were highly advanced. The shoulder of the jar is decorated with a band of cream daisy-like flowers, defined by a negative ground

The vessel’s rim was painted in a similar manner to define a cream square, enclosing the dark circle of the opening, a combination that seems to suggest the circle-in-square design and earth-sky symbolism of jade kongs.

Jade Lapidary: Kong and Bi

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8.2 Neolithic Liangzhu Culture Jade Cong, c. 3400–2250 BCE Jade Gallery, Aurora Museum, Pudong, Shanghai…

Eastern Zhou Bi Disk , 4th to 3rd century BCE

Professor. Gary Lee Todd, Sias International University, Xinzheng, Henan, China; Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City.

Jade lapidary began in the Neolithic Period in China but continued as a highly prized craft through subsequent periods into modern times.

Chinese jade is nephrite, often called “soft jade,” but it was still a remarkably hard stone, harder than any metal known to the ancient Chinese.

It comes in a variety of colors, some, such as white jade, being more highly prized than others.

To create objects of jade, Chinese lapidaries laboriously cut nephrite into rough forms and then ground down the stone using sand or quartz grit abrasives. Central openings were drilled using hollow tubes filled with abrasives, while fine cutwork, sometimes seen on Bi disks, was done using a string saw.

Jade colors were associated with the heavens, earth, cardinal directions, and by Confucius with the virtues of a gentleman.

Throughout Chinese history jade was considered more valuable than gold and silver and thus conveyed rank and status; it was also believed to protect the wearer from injury and illness and to insure immortality when buried with the dead.

The two most common jade objects found in burials are the kong and Bi.

Kongs are thought to represent the square of the earth; its hollow cylindrical center suggests the place of the axis mundi, often symbolized as a pole or world tree at the center of the universe.

The circular Bi represented the heavens. The string saw cut dragons around the edges of the disk may represent heavenly dragons while those around the center may perhaps be seen as dragons dwelling within the earth.

The Three Dynasties Period (2070- 221 BCE)

Late first millennia BCE accounts: the Bamboo Annals, Classic of History, and the Records of the Grand Historian, begin Chinese history with the rule of the Yellow Emperor, the mythical ancestor of the Chinese people and bringer of civilization.

He was succeeded by four legendary sage-kings before the formation of the first historical dynasties of the Xia (c. 2070- 1600 BCE), Shang (1766-1111 BCE),and Zhou (1100-221 BCE).

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Sima Qian in his Records of the Grand Historian describes the rule of seventeen Xia kings before the last despotic king was overthrown by the Shang.

Western scholars have long dismissed the Xia as a legendary dynasty, as they once did the Shang. The problem with the Xia is that many of their cities, including the presumptive capital at Erlitou, were subsequently occupied by the Shang.This makes it difficult to determine where one culture ends and the other begins, particularly as the artifacts of both cultures are similar.

Although the question of the Xia is far from resolved, what are believed to be Xia-era tombs were found at Lao Niu Po, Shaanxi province in 2010. While containing artifacts of a type consistent with probable Xia materials excavated at Erlitou, the four Lao Niu Po tombs did not contain any admixture of identifiably Shang materials.

The Shang Dynasty (1766-1111 BCE)

The Shang Dynasty was founded by Zi Lu, a tribal warlord, who took the throne as Cheng Tang and established the first dynastic capital at Shang near the modern city of Zhengzhou.

The Shang capital was moved at least five times, the last capital being Yin near Anyang. Excavations began at the site in 1928 and the burials of 11 Shang kings were discovered.

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Shang, Ritual Wine Vessel (Guang), c. 1200-1046 BCE, Bronze, 6.50 x 3.25 x 8.50 in.

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8.3 Shang, Ritual Wine Vessel ( Guang ), c. 1200-1046 BCE, Bronze, 6.50 x 3.25 x 8.50 in. (16.5 x 8.3 x 21.6 cm). Collection of the Brooklyn Museum. Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Alastair B. Martin, The Guennol Collection

The Shang royal tombs contained offerings of worked jade and thousands of cast bronzes, ranging from small tripod vessels for heating wine to large cooking urns weighing as much as 400 pounds. Shang bronze foundries produced at least twenty-four distinct vessel forms using a unique method of casting, known as piece-mold casting.

A Shang Guang or ritual wine vessel, probably from Anyang, is a fine example of Shang-style piece-mold bronze work. This type of vessel was used for pouring wine offerings over the altars of ancestors.

It takes the form of a horned dragon with a humorous bug-eyed face and toothy grin, whose body is completely covered with a complex decorative scheme that combines both modeled and higher-relief zoomorphic forms, some twenty different dragons and birds, together with a geometric low-relief background pattern. Two large taotie or monster masks appear on the sides of the pitcher and two smaller ones are found under the chin and tail of the large dragon. The handle is another animal.

A four-part mold was used to form the pitcher and a two part one for the lid. The artist has incorporated the mold flanges, formed in the pouring of the bronze, into the design scheme, using them to create the spine of the dragon on the lid and the noses of the taotie masks on the sides.

Shang bronze casters are known to have manipulated the surface color and sheen with addition of gold, silver, lead, or arsenic to the melting crucible. The silvery gray surface of this guang was the result of the addition of lead to the alloy.

The Zhou (1100-221 BCE)

The Zhou overthrew the Shang, justifying their takeover as their having been given the “Mandate of Heaven.”

The Zhou created a feudal system, the fengjian, which distributed grants of land to be administered by nobles and court officials loyal to the king.

The first Zhou capital was at Haojing, but after the loss of its western territories in 771 BCE, the government was moved east to Chengzhou. The relocation of the capital marks the historical division of the Zhou into the Western and the Eastern periods.

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The Western Zhou period was a time of economic prosperity and cultural advancement. During this era the sciences of astronomy, physics, and mathematics advanced, a working calendar was developed, and the arts flourished under imperial and feudal patronage.

The Early Zhou were not stylistically progressive.

They adopted Shang religion, philosophy, aesthetics, and employed artists who had worked for the Shang. Thus, their early bronzes are nearly indistinguishable from those of the Shang.

However, by the ninth century BCE, the Zhou began to define a unique style.

Western Zhou, Matched Hu or Wine Vessels, c. 1046-771 BCE

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8.4 Western Zhou, Matched Hu or Wine Vessels, c. 1046-771 BCE , Bronze, 21.75 x 14.75 in (55.2 x 37.5 cm). Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The taotie monster masks on these vessels are more subtle than under the Shang. The diamond boss forms the nose and the eyes are found in the center of the upper quadrants, while the handles form the horns of the mask. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Charlotte C. and John C. Weber Collection, Gift of Charlotte C. and John C. Weber through the Live Oak Foundation, 1988

This remarkable pair of bronze hu or wine vessels illustrates the increasing refinement of bronze casting during the Western Zhou period.

Although the surfaces of these large vessels are not as crowded as examples from the Shang era and there are no apparent flanges, these squared pear-shaped vessels seem heavy and clumsy in comparison to the earlier forms.

The ornamental scheme divides each face of the hu into four quadrants separated by wide crossed bands. In the center of each side is a raised diamond-shaped boss, which serves as a nose and when paired with circular “eye” motifs forms a stylized taotie mask.

The eye motifs are bracketed by dragons, now reduced to little more than a series of hooked elements on these vessels.

The long-nosed dragons serving as loops on either side of each wine container, form the horns of the taotie monster.

Eastern Zhou, Spring and Autumn period, Hu Wine Container, c. 770- 476 BCE

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8.5 Eastern Zhou, Spring and Autumn period, Hu Wine Container, c. 770- 476 BCE, Bronze inlaid with copper, 15.4in (39.1 cm) high. Three bands of intertwining dragons decorate the belly of this bronze vessel while at the mouth an inlay of copper, now oxidized, would have created visual contrast. The lid was the serving vessel for the wine. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund, 1999

The Eastern Zhou era is traditionally subdivided into the Spring and Autumn and the Warring States periods, each of which references a literary work.

The Spring and Autumn Annals takes its name from the court chronicles recorded in the State of Lu from 722 to 481 BCE, and thought to have been edited by Confucius (551-479 BCE.

Despite the turmoil of the era, the Eastern Zhou period was one of continuing advances in the arts and sciences.

Progress was made in bronze working with new technologies for gilding and inlaying metals, lost wax casting, and the introduction of pattern blocks to regularize and speed up the process of bronze decoration.

These new methods allowed Zhou artists to create new and larger vessel forms that were elegantly proportioned and aesthetically refined

During the Spring and Autumn Period one of the first studio practice manuals, the Kao Gong Ji or Book of Diverse Crafts was written. The book provided information on technological processes and alloys used in bronze working and tool manufacturing, lost wax casting, metal inlaying and gilding, dye preparation and dyeing processes, as well as information about other arts.

Compared to earlier Western Zhou forms, the hu or wine container is considerably more sophisticated in concept and execution. The gracefully rounded vessel is divided horizontally into registers of extremely shallow relief, which were pressed into the original using pattern blocks or carved stamps.

The body bands feature interlaced horned dragons as mirrored pairs, while those of the neck and foot are decorated with cloud patterns, suggesting the intertwined dragons are tian-long or heavenly dragons.

Around the mouth of the vessel is a zigzag pattern, where copper was inlaid into the bronze to create an area of color contrast. Three birds are modeled onto the lid of the vessel; these were feet for a shallow bowl that used to serve the wine.

Eastern Zhou, Warring States period, Yongzhong of Marquis Yi of Zheng, c.433 BCE, Bronze, 25 ft

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8.6 Eastern Zhou, Warring States period, Yongzhong of Marquis Yi of Zheng, c.433 BCE, Bronze, 25 ft. (7.62 m) long, Collection of the Hubei Provincial Museum, Wuhan. Bell sets such as these would be played by five musicians, standing, kneeling, or sitting to reach their section of bells. Each bell produced two notes depending upon where it was struck. Photo by Zzjgbc at Chinese Wikipedia distributed under a GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 license.

The Warring States period takes its name from the Strategies of the Warring States, attributed to Su Qin (380-284 BCE), reflecting a time of almost continual military conflict.

During the Spring and Autumn period military skirmishes between various Zhou states were a common occurrence, and many began to construct defensive walls around their territories. After 500 BCE these regional conflicts escalated to the point of almost continual warfare. Toward the end of the Spring and Autumn period, four Zhou states rose to dominate all the others. These were the Qin in the west, the Jin in the center, the Chu in the south, and the Qi in the east.

In 497 BC a civil war destroyed the Jin state, and its lands were partitioned among the Han, Wei, and Zhao clans. The Jin division marks the beginning of the Warring States Period.

Bronze items continued to be commissioned by the provincial rulers not only for use in their courts but also as furnishings for their tombs. Even the rulers of the smallest states commissioned an amazing number of bronze, gold, and jade items.

In 1978, Chinese archaeologists excavated the tomb of Marquis Yi, ruler of the small state of Zheng, who was buried in 433 BCE. The four-chambered tomb had a central room containing over 10,000 items.

The tomb contained a wide array of musical instruments, including bronze bells, stone chimes, drums, lutes, and sets of reed and bamboo pipes. Confucian philosophers of the age held music in high regard, believing it brought harmony and purity of mind to the listener.

The Yongzhong of Marquis Yi is a set of 65 bronze chime-bells suspended from a triple bronze frame measuring some 25 feet in overall length. Each row had bells of different sizes and diameters and each elliptical bell could produce two notes: one, when struck with a wooden mallet in the center and another, when struck on the side.The total range of the bell set was eight and a half octaves.

The Yongzhong required five musicians to play it. Depending upon their assigned bells, they stood, knelt or sat. Each bell has nine raised bosses; nine is considered to be a lucky number. Above the rim of each bell is a decorative band of interlaced dragons.

The Qin Empire (221-207 BC)

In 221 BCE, Ying Zheng, Marquis of Qin, conquered the last of the old Zhou provincial states and declared the Qin Dynasty.

He took the title of Qin Shi Huang” meaning “First August and Divine Emperor of Qin.”

Qin Shi Huang, laid the foundations of the Chinese nation. He introduced a number of reforms to facilitate the smooth functioning of the empire, including dividing the state into prefectures, instituting a uniform system of weights and measures and a single currency, standardizing the writing of Chinese characters, and imposing Legalism as a governing philosophy.

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Qin, Tomb of Qin Shi Huang, Terracotta Warrior, c. 215-210 BCE

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8.7 Qin, Tomb of Qin Shi Huang, Terracotta Warrior, c. 215-210 BCE. The Qin Emperor was accompanied into the afterlife by an army of several thousand terracotta warriors. These were mass-produced using molds and the finished pieces assembled and painted to make them more lifelike. Photo by Laika ac from UK distributed under a CC BY-SA 2.0 license.

A second massive project was Qin Shi Huang monumental mausoleum, which took 720,000 workers thirty-six years to complete. The tomb lies under an artificial mountain rising to a height of 247 feet, and according to historian Sima Qian, it contains a replica of the Qin kingdom and palace, with rivers and lakes of liquid mercury, and the stars of the night sky replicated with pearls on the ceiling of the vault.

The mound was set within two earthen-walled courts, an arrangement that reflected Zhou concepts of city design, which located the palace of the ruler within a walled court at the center of the city around which the outer city walls defined a second court.

East of the mound and outside the enclosing walls is a garrison of several thousand terracotta warriors. It is possible that Qin Shi Huang believed his vanquished enemies were waiting for him in the afterlife as he placed his soldiers facing east toward the conquered Zhou states.

Unlike the rulers of the preceding dynasties, Qin Shi Huang prepared for the battles of eternity, not by having soldiers killed to accompany him in death, but by having them replicated in terracotta.

The soldiers were mass-produced, using section molds for the legs and torso. The assembled figures were brightly painted with colored lacquers, which, unfortunately, crumbled to dust when the figures were exposed to dry air. Heads were modeled separately and pegged into the neck. They are so individualized that it has been suggested that they are actual portraits. It is more probable that they meant to depict peoples from different regions of the empire.

The terracotta warriors would have been a formidable army. Infantrymen stood between 5 feet 8 inches and 6 feet 2 inches while generals were 6 feet 5 inches, tall even by modern standards. Originally, each soldier was equipped with weapons appropriate to his military function, but these were looted by peasant rebels during the insurrection that ended the Qin Empire.

The Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220)

The Qin Dynasty was brought down in a revolt led by a peasant general named Liu Pang, who was such an effective and courageous leader that his fellow rebels elected him emperor.

Liu Pang took the throne as Han Gaozu. He was an effective ruler, consolidating the advances of the Qin while repairing some of Shi Huangdi’s worst abuses.

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Han, Mawangdui, Funeral Banner of Lady Dai (Xin Zhui), c.168 BCE

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8.9 Han, Mawangdui, Funeral Banner of Lady Dai (Xin Zhui), c.168 BCE, Ink on silk, 80.7 x 36.2 x 18.7 in. (205 x 92 x 47.7 cm), Collection of the Hunan Provincial Museum. The banner, which was laid over the innermost of Lady Dai’s four nested coffins, shows her journey through life through the underworld and into the heavenly realm of the ancestors. Changsha Hunan Provincial Museum

In 1971, an extraordinarily rich and well-preserved Han tomb, belonging to Xin Zhui, wife of the Marquis of Dai, was discovered at Mawangdui. When archaeologists opened the innermost of Lady Dai’s four nested wooden coffins, they were astonished to find no signs of decomposition. Her skin was elastic, limbs bendable, internal organs intact and the blood in her veins was still red more than two millennia after her death.

Lady Dai’s tomb contained more than a thousand items: cosmetics, food delicacies, silk textiles, books, lacquerware, and a small army of carved wooden figurines representing the servants who would tend to Lady Dai’s every need in the afterlife.

One of these rare survivals in Lady Dai’s tomb was a large T-shaped painted silk banner carried in the funeral procession, and afterward draped over the innermost of her four nested coffins.

The banner is divided vertically into the three cosmological realms of heavens, earth, and the underworld, and horizontally into Yin (female) on the left side and Yang (male) on the right.

The banner illustrates Lady Dai’s journey from the world of the living through the underworld and ultimately into the heavenly realm of the ancestors. Lady Dai’s image on the banner is one of the earliest known portraits in Chinese art.

She is shown in the middle section, standing on a dais and supporting herself with a cane that is similar to one actually found in the tomb. She is attended by three court ladies and receives the kowtows of two mourners.

Beneath this scene is a bi disk with two dragons intertwining through its center opening. This common tomb object is a symbol of immortality.

At the bottom of the banner, Lady Dai’s funerary feast has been set up under a canopy; her presence here is suggested by the coffin and offerings. Depicted on the horizontal part of the banner is the celestial realm, which is entered through a gateway guarded by two court officials.

In the middle of this celestial realm the Cup of Immortality is held up by a pair of riders who are flanked by dragons and felines. In the center top sits Xi Wangmu, the goddess of immortality and personification of Yin or femininity. To her left is the crescent moon with the Moon Toad and Hare. To her right are the Sun with its Raven and eight small suns, referencing the nine suns of the Archer Yi myth and symbolizing the masculine or Yang.

The Period of Disunity (220-581 CE)

The final collapse of the Han, in 220 CE, ushered in a four-centuries-long era of almost continual civil war, and frequent regime change, generalized as the Period of Disunity.

As had happened during the Warring States Period, the arts flourished in the various kingdoms of the north and south, especially as the new religion of Buddhism gained widespread acceptance.

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Northern Wei, Yungang Caves, Buddha of Cave 20, c. 453 CE, 45.5 ft. high

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8.10 Northern Wei, Yungang Caves, Buddha of Cave 20, c. 453 CE, 45.5 foot (14 meter) high. The Buddha and his attendants were originally covered with a layer of burnished lime plaster, still visible in the brighter areas, which protected the soft limestone from spalling. This covering was anchored to the stone by wooden pegs, some of the holes for these are still visible on the sculpture. Photo By Marcin Biatek distributed under a CC BY-SA 4.0 license.

The Northern Wei Dynasty was founded in 396 CE by the Xianbei leader, Tuoba Gui. During the reign of Emperor Wencheng (r. 453-459), Buddhism was adopted as the state religion and as an act of devotion, the emperor commissioned the first five cave temples at Yungang on Mount Wuzhou.

The carving of caves 16 through 20, known as the Imperial Caves, was carried out under the direction of the monk Tan Yao. Little is known about the artist other than he came from Gansu Province, where, several Buddhist cave sites were known around the Silk Route center of Dunhuang.

Northern Wei patronage at Yungang continued until 494 CE when the capital was moved to Luoyang.

The focal point of each cave was a monumental Buddha image; the smallest of these being more than 32 feet high. The walls of the grottos were also densely carved with relief images of the Buddha, some only a few inches tall.

The style of the five Imperial Buddhas owes much to earlier Gandharan prototypes brought from India. The largest of the Tan Yao sculptures is the 45.5-foot Buddha of Cave 20.

The immense, square-shouldered Buddha sits in a posture of meditation, attended by two standing Buddhas, one of which has been damaged by spalling.

To heighten to heighten the realism of the face, the iris of the eyes is deeply incised and the pupil indicated with an inlay of black stone. The most distinctive feature of these Buddhas are large pendulous ears which almost touch the shoulders of the Buddha.

As indicated by the double-row of square mortise holes in the cave wall, just above and on either side of the Buddha’s head, a shielding wooden roof was once raised over the sandstone figures.

Also, as a protective measure, and to heighten the naturalism of the image, the projecting central Buddha was originally covered with a layer of plaster and presumably painted, although no traces of pigment remain. The rows of drill-holes evident in spalled areas once held wooden pegs used to anchor the plaster to the stone core.

The five Imperial Buddhas are thought to have depicted rulers of the Tuoba dynasty in the guise of living Buddhas. The Cave 20 Buddha is believed to a portrait of Crown Prince Jigmu, Emperor Wencheng’s father.

Six Dynasties, Gu Kaizhi Admonitions of the Instructress to the Palace Ladies Handscroll, Lady Feng and the Bear c. 600-700 CE

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8.11 Six Dynasties, Gu Kaizhi (c. 344- c. 406), Admonitions of the Instructress to the Palace Ladies Handscroll, Scene 4: Lady Feng and the Bear (copy), C. 600-700 CE, ink on silk, Collection of the British Museum. Gu Kaizhi’s painting originally included 11 scenes based on a satirical text by Zhang Hua (c. 232-300 CE.) The scenes were intended to show correct female behavior according to Confucianism. The British Museum

The Six Dynasties Period was a time of political instability, as six successive dynasties ruled briefly in the south of China. It was also a time when the arts prospered in the Nanjing courts and artists began to garner individual attention for their work. One of those was Gu Kaizhi (c. 344- c. 406), a painter at the Eastern Jin court and the first Chinese artist whose name is known to history

Gu Kaizhi was born in Wuxi, Jiangsu and was the son of a government official. He is recorded as having been a prolific painter, producing more than 70 paintings, but only three have survived in the form of later Tang and Sung copies: Admonitions of the Instructress to the Palace Ladies, Nymph of the Luo River, and Wise and Benevolent Women.

Gu Kaizhi’s Admonitions Scroll takes its story from Zhang Hua’s satirical account of life at the Western Jin court during the reign of Emperor Hui. The emperor was not of sound mind and his wife Jia Nan Feng was the de facto ruler of the empire from 291 to 300 CE.

In a world governed by Confucian philosophy, Jia Nan Feng’s behavior was considered inappropriate; women, even Empresses, were expected to be submissive and meek, not murderous and power-hungry.

The scenes of the Admonitions Scroll are intended to present Confucian moral exemplars, behaviors either emulate or avoid. They are presented as a series of lessons by the court Instructress, whose job it is to teach proper conduct to the court ladies.

The handscroll was organized into nine scenes separated by moralizing couplets; unfortunately, parts of the original have been lost.

The first surviving scene is the fourth, which shows Lady Feng stepping into the path of an escaped black bear, sacrificing herself to prevent it from attacking the emperor Han Yuandi, while his other concubine runs away.

Lady Feng’s heroic, self-sacrificing act is intended to serve as a model of correct behavior. The setting for this scene is minimal, the space implied rather than defined; that the event is taking place in the palace is assumed rather than shown by the artist.

With the possible exception of the Emperor, the scene has no true portraits. The faces of the soldiers as well as those of the ladies are depictions of generic type, rather than individuals. The scene demonstrates the use of hierarchical scale with each person being sized in accordance with their rank and importance.

The Tang Dynasty (618-907 CE)

In 589, after almost three hundred years of political chaos, China was reunited under the short-lived Sui Dynasty.

TheSui were overthrown in 618 CE by Li Yuan, Duke of Tang, who established the Tang Dynasty.

Taking the throne as Emperor Gaozu, he made his capital at Chang’an an important hub of the Silk Route. Under the Tang, Chang’an became a cosmopolitan city, its streets filled with foreign traders, artisans, and the embassies of China’s far-flung trading partners.

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Tang, Tomb Figure of a Neighing Horse, c. 700-800 CE

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8.12 Tang, Tomb Figure of a Neighing Horse, c. 700-800 CE, earthenware with sancai glaze, 30 x 33 x 11 in. (76 x 84 x 28 cm), Collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. The Ferghana horses depicted in Tang era tombs are much different from the cobby-bodied ponies in Shi Huang Di’s tomb, they had longer legs and more powerful chests and were thought to be the finest horses of their time. Victoria and Albert Museum, London, Gift of Mrs. Robert Solomon, 2009, Museum no. C-50-1964

Tang tombs are famous for their burial offerings or mingqi, especially colorfully glazed ceramic sculptures, some quite large, representing imported Ferghana horses, Arabian and Bactrian camels, court officials, and exotic foreigners from Persia and the Byzantine Empire.

These low-fired ceramic statuettes, sometimes of impressive scale, were made exclusively as tomb offerings. Although decorated ceramics were known during the Han Dynasty,

Tang potters invented new lead-glazes by adding copper, iron, and cobalt oxides to produce deep and richer colors. Ceramics decorated with these vibrant new glazes were known as sancai or three-color wares.

Among the more impressive Tang tomb mingqi are figures of the Ferghana horses the Chinese were importing from Central Asia (Uzbekistan). These animals were prized for their speed and endurance.

The Chinese called them “Horses of Heaven” and believed that they were so powerful they sweated blood; this phenomenon is thought to have been a parasitic response in the breed.

Sweating blood is suggested in the Neighing Horse by allowing the brown sancai glaze streaming from the horse’s mane and trappings. Tang tomb figures were mold-made in sections and then assembled.

In glazing these works the artist has taken care to control the natural tendency of the sancai to drip and run. Prior to glazing the clay figure was lightly scored to position and control the flow of the glazes.

Tang, attrib. Yan Liben, Thirteen Emperors Handscroll: Guangwu of Han, c. 650-670 CE

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8.14 Tang, attrib. Yan Liben (c. 600-673 CE), Thirteen Emperors Handscroll: Emperor Guangwu of Han, c. 650-67s CE, ink and color on silk, Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, overall 20.18 x 209.06 in (51.3 x 531 cm). The only distinct individual in the scene is the emperor, the ladies, litter bearers, and court officials are stereotypes of their roles. Attributed to: Yan Liben, Chinese, about 600–673 The thirteen emperors, Chinese, Tang dynasty, second half of the 7th century A.D.Ink and color on silk, 51.3 x 531 cm (20 3/16 x 209 1/16 in.). Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Denman Waldo Ross Collection, 31.643.

Yan Liben, was a scholar, poet, architect, and artist who served as Minister of Public Works and Imperial Painter during the reigns of Emperors Taizong and Gaozong.

He is best known as a painter of portraits and figures that epitomized Confucian ideals, but is also recorded as having created paintings of animals and birds, and Buddhist and Daoist subjects.

His most famous surviving work is the Thirteen Emperors Handscroll, which depicts thirteen successive emperors beginning with Emperor Han Liu Fulin (94-74 BC) and ending with Emperor Sui Yang (AD 569-618).

The rulers are depicted in hierarchical scale, towering over all others in their scenes whether standing or seated, to show their magnificence by virtue of the contrast.

Yan Liben is especially interested in showing the essence of each emperor’s character and personality; some appear wise, others foolish; some wrathful and others benevolent.

While the emperors are individualized and appear to be portraits; the other figures are stereotypes of people of various stations, their importance indicated by the details of their clothing and their relative scale.

Yan builds his figures with hard, consistent-width lines known as iron-wire lines; these lines are most obvious in the white garments of the litter-bearers where they are not obscured by the Yan Liben’s strong color.

Tang, Fengxian Grotto, Vairocana Buddha, c. 672-676 CE

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8.15 Tang, Fengxian Grotto, Vairocana Buddha, c. 672-676 CE, main figure 54 ft.(17 m) high. Empress Wu Zetian, the only female to rule China in her own name, personally sponsored the cutting of this grotto. The Face of the cosmic Buddha Vairocana is thought to have the features of the empress. Photo By Anagoria distributed under a CC BY 3.0 license.

Buddhism received increased imperial patronage during the reign of Wu Zetian.

Wu Zetian came to the Imperial court as a thirteen-year-old to serve as one of Emperor Taizong’s concubines. After Taizong’s death, she spent a brief period at a Buddhist Temple before being recalled by Emperor Gaozong.

Wu Zetian engineered the ouster of Gaozong’s empress and took her place on the throne. When the emperor was incapacitated by a stroke, she became regent, and after his death she ruled as emperor, the only woman in Chinese history to do so.

Her rule opposed by the Confucians at court, Wu Zetian turned to Buddhism and sponsored the building of temples and shrines to win the favor of the people.

Among the many projects she patronized was the Fengxian Grotto (Ancestor Worshiping Cave) at Longmen (Dragon’s Gate), overlooking the Yi River.

The central image at Fengxian Grotto a colossal, 56-foot high image of the Cosmic Buddha, Vairocana. In Mahayana Buddhism, Vairocana is the embodiment of the generative force of the universe. He is shown seated on a lotus throne of 1000 petals. Each petal represents a separate universe of one-hundred-million Buddhist worlds.

On either side of the Buddha are attending bodhisattvas, disciples, and guardians, whose relative importance is shown through the use of hierarchical scale; the bodhisattvas stand 42 feet tall, while the disciples are only 34 feet high.

Carved into the walls of the cave are lokapalas and figures of monks set into shallow niches between the larger figures.

Although inspired by the earlier Northern Wei style, the Fengxian Buddha has a more Sinicized appearance and less obtrusive ears. The body is less massive and more feminine. In contrast to the Buddha of Yungang Cave 20, the Fengxian Buddha wears a heavier, closed sanghati. The folds of the garment, so crisp and detailed at Yungang, are now schematized as a necklace of U-shaped lines across the Buddha’s chest. The face of the Buddha also has a feminine quality and may be a portrait of Wu Zetian.

Tang, Dunhuang, Mogao Cave 45, Alcove with Buddha and attendant Sculptures, c. 750 CE

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8.16 Tang, Dunhuang, Mogao Cave 45, Alcove with Buddha and attendant Sculptures, c. 750 CE, clay, straw, reed, plaster and pigment. The stone in the Dunhuang area was not suitable for carving so local artists modeled sculptures on straw and reed armatures, resulting in more natural figures that appear capable of movement.

During the Tang Dynasty several Buddhist cave complexes were carved in the vicinity of Dunhuang; all were cut without royal patronage by pilgrims and merchants traveling the Silk Road.

The 492 Mogao Caves range from tiny shrines to more elaborate temples filled with sculpture and paintings. Some of the larger caves, including Cave 45, feature alcoves filled with paintings and Buddhist sculptures.

Unlike the limestone and sandstone cliffs of Longmen and Yungang, the escarpment at Mogao is a gravel conglomerate unsuitable for monumental sculpture.

Instead local artisans modeled life-size sculptures out of mud and straw, using bundles of branches and reeds as an armature. These earthen figures were then covered with a coat of stucco and painted. The resulting figures are fluid in pose and gesture and seem capable of movement.

In addition to sculpture, the walls of Cave 45 are decorated with mural paintings of bodhisattvas, disciples and guardian figures, reflecting the growing popularity of Pure Land Buddhism.

Tang, Mount Wutai, Great Buddha Hall of Nanchan Temple, 782 CE

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8.17 Tang, Mount Wutai, Great Buddha Hall of Nanchan Temple, 782 CE. This timber-frame building features three bays built on a modular system and is one of the earliest surviving examples of raised-beam roof construction that allowed the development of upswept rooflines in Chinese architecture. Photo by Zeus1234 distributed under a CC By-SA 3.0 license.

The Great Buddha Hall of Nanchan Temple on Mount Wutai is one of the few examples of Tang architecture that survived the Buddhist Purges of 845 CE.

An inscription on one of the beams dates the building to 782 CE, making it the oldest timber-frame building in China.

The Hall is a simple three bay structure, measuring 32.5 feet deep by 38.2 feet wide.

As is typical in such post and beam structures, the exterior walls are non-load-bearing and simply enclose space.

The roof-line shows the beginning stages of the “sweeping” upturned eaves that characterize Chinese architecture from the Tang era onward.

This shape is achieved using a construction technique known as “raised-beam”. In raised-beam construction the ridge beam sits on a stepped, box-like framework of beams and purlins which allow greater flexibility in the roof profile.

The Sung Dynasty (960-1279 CE)

The Tang dynasty collapsed in the early tenth century and China again was divided. Finally, after a chaotic period known as the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms (907-960 CE), Zhou Kuangyin, succeeded in reunifying the country.

He took the throne as Emperor Taizu and established the Sung Dynasty. The Sung is divided historically into the Northern and Southern periods; the first ending with the loss of the northern territories in 1126 to Jurchen invaders.

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Northern Sung, Fan Kuan, Travelers among Mountains and Streams, c.990-1020 CE

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8.18 Northern Sung, Fan Kuan (c. 960-1030 CE), Travelers among Mountains and Streams, c.990-1020 CE, ink and color on silk, 81.22 x 40.66 in. (206.3 x 103.3 cm), Collection of the National Palace Museum, Taipei. This monumental hanging scroll depicts a narrow slice of a vast mountain to express Daoist concepts of harmony in nature. National Palace Museum, Taiwan, Republic of China

The early Sung rulers were able rulers and effective military leaders who brought peace and prosperity to China.

They revived the civil bureaucracy and instituted the Imperial Painting Academy under whose auspices the best artists from across China were brought to work at the Sung court. The result was an academic style that focused on representing the natural world in a highly descriptive, realistic manner.

Chinese landscape painting reached its zenith during the Sung dynasty in the works of masters such Fan Kuan and Guo Xi.

Fan Kuan spent much of his life as a Daoist recluse in the Shaanxi Mountains. His Travelers amid Mountains and Streams is a Daoist meditation on nature and living in harmony with it.

The large monochrome ink painting expresses the immenseness of nature by showing only a narrow slice of the massive mountain in the middle distance, making it clear that the landscape extends far beyond the edges of the scroll. Fan Kuan establishes a high vantage point in the foreground so that the viewer looks down onto a distant path cutting through low hills.

Along this path an ant-sized mule train moves, its miniscule scale in the landscape denoting the relative unimportance of man compared to nature. As is typical of Chinese painting, the viewer’s vantage point shifts as the eye looks across to the middle ground and then up to the massive mountain in the distance.

The large scale (6.75 by 2.5 feet) of the painting obscures some of the finer points of the scene, such as the Daoist temple on the hill above the mule train or the wealth of detail in the trees.

As if stating that the essence of nature is in its particulars, Fan renders each individual leaf so exactly that at least three, perhaps four, different species of trees can be identified. Equally impressive is the skill with which the artist has drawn the tree trunks, using a single bold brush line to define form and shadow.

Southern Sung, Ma Yuan, On a Mountain Path in Spring, c. 1190-1220 CE

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8.21 Southern Sung, Ma Yuan (c. 1160-1225 CE), On a Mountain Path in Spring, c. 1190-1220, ink and color on silk, 10.78 x 17 in. (27.4 x 43.1 cm), Collection of the National Palace Museum, Taiwan. A scholar, followed by his servant, embarks on a journey on a foggy spring morning. The compositional elements direct the viewer to Emperor Ningzong poem written to accompany the work. National Palace Museum, Taiwan, Republic of China

In 1125 CE the Jurchen Jin Dynasty attacked northern China and Emperor Huizong quickly abdicated in favor of his eldest son Zhao Huan, who reigned for a single year before he, Huizong and 3000 members of the court were taken prisoner.

Huizong’s ninth son, Zhao Gou, managed to flee to the south, where he established a new capital at Hangzhou, and took the throne, of a greatly reduced Sung Empire, as Emperor Sung Gaozong (r. 1127-1162).

Gaozong invited all the Imperial administrators, scholars and artists who had managed to evade the Jurchen to his court and set about recreating the institutions of his father’s northern court, including the Imperial Painting Academy. Painters of the restored academy continued to work in the same genres that had been staples of the Huizong era.

Southern painters also produced more intimate works, often as album leafs, that seem to evoke a single transient moment in time.

Ma Yuan was born in Qiantang to a multi-generational family of artists, all of whom had worked in the Imperial Painting Academy. Ma Yuan served in the courts of Emperor Gaungzong and Emperor Ningzong as a painter in attendance.

Ma Yuan preferred to paint in monochrome in an angular style, using iron-wire lines to define trees and rocks and ax-chop strokes to create the rough faces of mountains and boulders.

In Daoist fashion his depictions of men and their works are often rendered in reduced scale compare to nature.On a Mountain Path in Spring, an album leaf, illustrates a foggy landscape through which a scholar and his servant pass.

Most of the elements are placed in the lower left, leaving the remainder of the page to be interpreted as mist or cloud. This format was so often used by Ma that he was known as “one corner Ma.”

Also typical of Ma’s work are the barren willow trees bending in the breeze; in this case the willow is a symbol of spring as well as the act of leaving. The scholar is followed by his servant, carrying a guzheng or Chinese zither, perhaps a reference to Confucian beliefs about the power of music.

Startled by the passage of the men through the landscape, a bird takes wing. The path, branches, and bird all direct the viewer to the inscription, a poem written in the upper right-hand corner, was composed by the Emperor Ningzong, who, with his empress, frequently wrote poems to accompany Ma’s album leaf paintings. It reads “The wild flowers dance when brushed by my sleeves. Reclusive birds make no sound as they shun the presence of people.”

Southern Sung, Liang Kai, The Sixth Chan Patriarch Cutting Bamboo, ink on paper.12th century CE

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8.22 Southern Sung, Liang Kai (c. 1140-1210 CE), The Sixth Chan Patriarch Cutting Bamboo, ink on paper.12th century Ce, ink on paper, Collection of the Tokyo National Museum. Chan paintings were a form of meditation and executed spontaneously. It shows the patriarch Huineng doing an activity that led to his spontaneous enlightenment. Tokyo National Museum

During the late Tang and again during the Five Dynasties, many Buddhist sects were banned in China and the wealth of their temples seized. The exception was Chan Buddhism, which had been introduced in the 6th century CE by the Indian monk Bodhidarma, famous for his feats of meditation.

Traditional Buddhist images were rejected by Chan devotes as worthless in achieving enlightenment. Instead, Chan Buddhism held that enlightenment could come as a spontaneous realization, often when engaged in menial, repetitive tasks, or as a gradual awakening through meditation.

Chan monks used monochrome brush painting as a form of meditation. In Chan Buddhist painting spontaneity was important, and paintings were begun with a few strokes or splashes of ink without any preconception of subject.

In painting there was no attempt to model forms or create illusions of depth as that would be counterproductive to the goal of enlightenment, in essence adding illusion to the already illusionary world.

Liang Kai began his career in the Imperial Painting Academy and ultimately rose to the rank of Painter-in-Attendance at the imperial court. For unknown reasons he left court, and entered a Chan Buddhist monastery.

Sixth Chan Patriarch Chopping Bamboo is a simple, direct presentation of the Chan Patriarch Huineng engaged in the sort of mundane, repetitive activity that could lead to spiritual awakening.

Indeed, Liang is showing us that very moment when the repetitive sound of the blade striking against the bamboo prompts the realization of the Patriarch’s own enlightenment. Chan Buddhist paintings were exported to Japan where they influenced the development of Zen Buddhist painting.

The Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368)

The defeat of the Jurchen Jin, in 1234, added northern China to the Mongol Empire.

In 1271 Kublai Khan declared the Yuan Dynasty and began the conquest of the Southern Sung.

Kublai Khan established his capital at Khanbalik (Beijing). Determined to make his court as glorious as those of the Sung; he called China’s greatest scholars and artists to his service but they refused to come, forcing him to bring officials from other parts of the Mongol empire.

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Yuan, Zhao Mengfu, Groom and Horse, 1296 CE

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8.23 Yuan, Zhao Mengfu (1254-1322 CE), Groom and Horse, 1296 CE from Grooms and Horses handscroll, ink and color on paper, overall scroll: 11.87 x 70.12 in (30.2 x 178.1 cm), Metropolitan Museum of Art. Zhao painted this work to advocate for better treatment of Chinese at the Yuan court, suggesting that they like the horse suffer from disuse. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of John M. Crawford Jr., 1988

In 1286, Zhao Mengfu, a descendant of the Sung dynasty, believing that his presence at court would allow him to advocate on behalf of the Chinese people, decided to enter service at the Mongol court.

Zhao Mengfu, put aside the refined styles of the Sung, realizing that his Yuan masters, while admiring the Sung, did not understand the intellectual subtitles of their art. He drew on the painting traditions of the Tang dynasty, which were considered more direct and virile style that would be appreciated by the nomadic Mongols.

Groom and Horse is an example of Zhao’s subtle activism. Zhao depicts the powerful horse in an abstracted foreshortened pose with an economy of line, minimal modeling, and no color.

The animal has grown fat from long hours in the stable. In contrast the groom is rendered frontally and is taller than the horse; both elements give him greater visual importance. The groom is well-modeled, giving him a realism and dimensionality lacking in the horse. His face is an individualized portrait, possible that of the artist, rather than a generalized type.

The work was inspired by a saying attributed to the Tang era philosopher, Han Yu (762-824): “There are always excellent steeds, but not always a Bole, the excellent judge of horses.”

The reference is to a farmer Bo Le who is credited with the invention of the equine physiognomy or judging horses by their appearance. In comparing the horse, highly valued by the Mongols, to the Chinese groom, the work can be read as a commentary on the Mongol ruler’s failure to properly value Chinese scholars.

The inscription tells us that the painting was created for Surveillance Commissioner Feiqing, who is thought to have been a government recruiter.

Yuan, Guan Dao Sheng, Bamboo Groves in Mist and Rain, 1308 CE

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8.24 Yuan, Guan Dao Sheng (1262-1219 CE), Bamboo Groves in Mist and Rain, 1308 CE, ink on paper, overall size: 9.12 x 44.87 in. (23.17 x 113.98 cm), Collection of the National Palace Museum, Taiwan. Lady Guan was a master of bamboo painting and wrote the standard treatise on the subject. In this scroll she skillfully moves the viewer through the landscape using fog banks to direct the eye. National Palace Museum, Taiwan, Republic of China

Zhao Mengfu was accompanied to the Mongol court by his wife, Lady Guan DaoSheng. While her husband painted to please his Yuan masters, Lady Guan was free to paint in the more literary style of the Sung era.

She is especially known for her studies of bamboo and for her treatise on the subject, The Bamboo in Monochrome, which remains a standard reference on the art and philosophy of painting bamboo.

Bamboo Groves in Mist and Rain depicts an entire grove of bamboo spread across a natural landscape, rather than the more typical solitary stalk against a blank ground.

The level vantage point, shallow depth, obscuring mist, and calligraphic treatment of the bamboo reflect the influence of the Southern Sung School of painting.

Guan DaoSheng skillfully moves the viewer through the composition without using the earlier Sung trope of a pathway. Instead, she uses the clumps of bamboo to lead the eye into the landscape and the fog bank to block and redirect visual movement.

Yuan, Huang Gongwang, Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains, 1347-1350 CE

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8.25 Huang Gongwant (1269-1354 CE), Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains, 1347-1350 CE, ink on paper, Collection of the Zhejiang Provincial Museum, Hangzhou. Huang began his masterpiece when he was 78 years old and worked on it for three years, off and on. In it he introduces a dry brush technique to give texture and form to his mountains. Zhejiang Provincial Museum in Hangzhou

The invitation to work at the Mongol court was refused by many who had served the fallen Sung. Instead, they elected to become recluses living far from the Mongol capital and spending their time in scholarly pursuits, writing poetry, practicing calligraphy and ink painting.

Freed from the dictates of imperial service, they developed art styles which emphasized individuality and self-expression. These artists became known as literati painters, and four, Huang Gongwang, Wu Zhen, Ni Zan, and Wang Meng, are considered to be the Four Great Masters of Yuan Painting.

Huang Gongwang was born Lu Jian in Changshu. A child prodigy and orphan, he was renowned for reading the Confucian classics at a young age. His talents attracted the attention of Huang Le, an elderly childless man, who adopted the boy to carry on his family’s name. Lu Jian’s adopted name reflects the circumstances of his adoption; it means “Old Man Huang’s Longing.” Huang Gongwang was brilliant but wayward. He easily passed the civil service exam but was quickly dismissed for malfeasance.

For a time he made a living as a fortune-teller before ending up in prison in mid-life. When Huang was released from prison he retired to Zhejiang province in eastern China, took up residence along the banks of the Fuchun river, and devoted himself entirely to painting.

His masterpiece Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains was painted when the artist was 78 years old and it depicts the panorama of the mountains that rise west of Hangzhou. The colophon relates that the entire composition of mountains, hills, marshes, and river was sketched out in one sitting using light ink. Then as the spirit moved him, Huang added in features using a dry brush technique.

The scroll is interesting in that it reveals that the artist reworked parts of the composition, redrawing forms, darkening contour lines, and adding long “hemp-fiber” brush strokes to create texture on the hill-and-mountain-sides. Today the scroll exists in two sections, the longer one known as the Master Wu Young Scroll (in Taipei) and the smaller Remaining Mountain (in Hangzhou).

In the 17th century the painting was owned by wealthy Wu Hongyu who ordered it to be burned as a ritual sacrifice at his death. The scroll was duly tossed into the flames by his relatives but it was rescued by a niece, who concealed her act by throwing another, less significant, scroll into the fire.

The Ming Dynasty (1368-1644)

In 1352 CE, Zhu Yuanzgang, leader of the Red Turbans, united all the rebel factions and after 15 years of fighting, drove the Mongols out of China.

In 1368, he took the throne as Emperor Hong Wu of the Ming “radiant” Dynasty.

When Hong Wu died, he was briefly succeeded by his grandson, Zhu Yunwen but the throne was usurped by Zhu Di, Hong Wu’s fourth son, who took the throne as Emperor Yongle, meaning “Perpetual Happiness.”

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Ming, Beijing, Forbidden City, Outer Court and Hall of Supreme Harmony, 1406-1420 CE

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8.27 Ming, Beijing, Forbidden City, Outer Court and Hall of Supreme Harmony, 1406-1420 CE. Begun by Emperor Yongle when he moved the capital to Beijing, construction of the city’s 9,999 rooms was completed in only 14 years by a labor force of 100,000 men. Photo by Daniel Case distributed under a CC BY-SA 3.0 license.

Emperor Yongle’s (r. 1402-1424), first act was to move the capital to Beijing. His selection of Beijing was based on the city’s symbolic importance. The Chinese believed Beiing to be directly under the North Star, a star that was a fixed point in the heavens and had a purplish tint. Beijing was sometimes called the “purple city” because of its association with the Pole Star.

Yongle’s palace is known in Chinese as "Zijincheng", which translates literally as “North Star (zi) forbidden (jin) walled city (cheng). By placing his palace in the center of the Polar city and painting its walls purple, Yongle was comparing himself to the Pole Star, a fixed point in the heavens around which everything else revolved.

The design of the palace complex was inspired by concepts of state organization originating in the Zhou Li, and the Yingzao Fashi or Treatise on Architectural Methods of Lie Zi. Both works argued for a hierarchical arrangement of architecture, and this is clearly evident in the arrangement of public and private buildings within the greater complex.

The Forbidden City incorporates within its walls and surrounding moat, an area measuring 3123 x 2447 feet. The palace is composed of several compounds with more than two million square feet of floor space divided into 9,999 rooms. The number nine symbolizes the quality of permanence or “everlastingness” in Chinese numerology.

The palace buildings are formal, symmetrical, hierarchically ordered, and oriented according to the Chinese concepts of geomancy. Visitors entered through the Meridian gate in the south wall, ascending one of the outer ramps according to their rank, and entered the first court, crossing over the canalized “Golden Waters” river. Dirt from the canal and moat excavations was used to construct an artificial hill on the north side of the compound opposite the Meridian Gate.

A second gateway provided access to the second court, the Wai Chao, where public ceremonies were held. The main feature of the second court was a large, tiered marble platform shaped like a capital letter “I”, which supported a succession of three halls: The Hall of Supreme Harmony, The Hall of Central Harmony and The Hall of Preserving Harmony; the first two provided the stage for imperial audiences and rituals, while the third was the site where the highest level of civil service exams were given. Within the third compound were the private residences of the emperor, empress, and chief concubines.

Ming, Dong Qichang, The Qingbian Mountains, 1617 CE

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8.29 Ming, Dong Qichang (1555-1636 CE, The Qingbian Mountains, 1617 CE, ink on paper, 88.38 x 26.45 in. (224.50 x 67.20 cm), Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Dong uses the contrast of black in on white paper to build an abstracted landscape of negative and positive spaces. Cleveland Museum of Art

Dong Qichang was a child prodigy who passed the metropolitan civil service exam at age twelve. Five years later he took the imperial exams but placed second because of his poor calligraphy. Undaunted by his failure, Dong spent the next few years mastering calligraphy.

When he finally passed the imperial exams, he began an undistinguished career as a civil servant. Dong seems to have had considerable difficulties dealing with the people. There are stories of student rebellions when he was at the Imperial Academy and of disputes with local townspeople ending in his house being set afire when he was a magistrate.

Despite his difficult personality, he was repeatedly called to service by the Emperor Guangzong. In 1634, at the age of 79, Dong retired, determined to devote himself entirely to his art.

In The Qingbian Mountains Dong compresses foreground, middle ground and background into a single vertical space that negates illusions of distance.

Dong relies on the expressive power of his brushstrokes to abstract the landscape into austere patterns of negative and positive space, evoking the same stark contrasts of black ink and white paper valued in calligraphy. His scenes are not burdened with excessive detail, painterly excesses, or distracting narrative; instead, they are alive with the energy of nature.

In his writings Dong Qichang insisted on the importance of studying the work of past masters as a means of enhancing one’s own work, not through imitation but as an aid to finding one’s artistic voice. His works were often inspired by those of earlier painters.

The first of two inscriptions at the top of the painting identifies the painting as being of the Qingbian Mountains in manner of Dong Yuan (a painter of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period), and as painted for Tung Hsuan-tsai (whose seal appears on the work), in the summer of 1617.

The second inscription is a poetic description of the scene of mountains amid rustling streams as a worthy place to spend an autumn day, book in hand, meditating on the Dao (Way).

The Qing Dynasty (1644 AD - 1911 AD)

In 1616, Nurhaci, a Jurchen chieftain, proclaimed the Later Jin Dynasty and declared himself emperor.

Two years later, citing “Seven Great Vexations” he attacked China. The Jin conquest of the Ming Empire was completed by his son, Huang Taiji, who changed the name of his people to Manchu, and declared the Qing Dynasty.

The Qing dynasty was a time of increased contact with the West. Jesuit missionaries brought Western arts and sciences to the Imperial court.

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The People’s Republic of China (1949 --)

Under the leadership of Dr. Sun Yat-sin, a Western-style Republic of China was instituted in 1912. This brief experiment in democracy ended with the Chinese Communist takeover in 1949.

Mao Zedong saw the arts as having one purpose: to serve the propaganda needs of the Party and the only acceptable style was socialist realism. Artists working in traditional Asian or Western styles risked public censure, imprisonment, torture, the destruction of their artwork and loss of their homes and property.

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Ye Yushan, Rent Collection Courtyard, 1965

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8.31 Ye Yushan (b. 1935), Rent Collection Courtyard, 1965, copper-plated fiberglass replicas. The original 114 sculptures were made using wooden armatures and modeled using clay and straw, then stained and given black glass eyes. They told the story of the alleged abuses of a wealthy landowner during the Qing and Republican eras.

Ye Yushan studied at the Sichuan Institute of Fine Arts and the Central Academy of Fine Arts, and later served as the director of the Sichuan Institute of Fine Arts.

In 1965, he was commissioned to create a multi-figure, site-specific work by the Sichuan Ministry of Culture. The work was a large propaganda piece that would be placed on the property in Dayi that had been owned by Liu Wencai (1881-1949).

Under the Maoist regime, Liu Wencai was vilified as an example of the evils of the old regime, and of Republican era capitalism. His alleged crimes included abuses of the peasants such as imprisonment and murder.

Although popularly portrayed as a monster, Liu was far from evil; during the Japanese invasion, he was credited with saving the lives of many Red Army soldiers.

The enormous sculpture group, The Rent Collection Courtyard (figure 8.30), originally included 114 life-sized figures, and was the realization of Mao’s call for a new revolutionary art that would depict the struggles and achievements of the proletariat.

Mao believed this could only be achieved if artists lived and learned from the people, so Ye Yushan along with a group of teachers and students from the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, went to Dayi, where they worked with local folk artists to create the pieces, using “peasant” materials.

In a technique reminiscent of the Mogao Buddhist sculptures near Dunhuang, the artists began by building wooden armatures over which the figures were modeled with a compound of clay and straw.

The surface was then coated with a finer mixture of clay, sand and cotton; and black glass added to give a life-like quality to the eyes. These original sculptures were completed in less than five months.

The Rent Collection Courtyard proved so popular that 103 of its figures were replicated in copper-plated fiberglass for durability and use in traveling educational exhibitions across China.

Ai Weiwei, Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn, 1995

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8.32 Ai Weiwei (b.1957), Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn, 1995, gelatin silver print triptych, each print 49.62 x. 39.25 in. (126 x 99.69 cm). Chinese antiquities are a frequent prop in Ai’s performance and installation pieces where they symbolize and are Chinese culture. Their destruction or defacement illustrates the loss of culture through communism and commercialism.

When Den Xiaoping took the reins of government after the death of Chairman Mao, he began a program of reform and modernization that included opening a dialogue with the West.

The mandate for social realist art was rescinded, allowing artists to experiment with previously banned traditional Chinese and Western modernist styles.

As early as 1978 the first contemporary artists’ groups: Xingxing or “Stars Group” (1979-1983), and the Xiamen Dada (1986-1988) appeared in China.

The relative freedom of Post-Mao China saw the rise of avant-garde movements such as the conceptual and anti-socialist realism’85 New Wave (1985-1989), and the Post-70s Ego Generation, consisting of artists born after 1970, who returned to the self as subject in reaction to the One Child Policy. Culturally and politically critical styles, Political Pop and Cynical Realism, also appeared during this period.

Ai Weiwei’s early life was spent in the countryside where his parents underwent reeducation. After Mao died, the family was allowed to return to Beijing and Ai Weiwei enrolled at the Beijing Film Academy.

In 1981 left for New York City, where he attended the Parsons School of Design and took classes at the Art Students’ League. During this time, he explored a wide range of media, making films, doing installation and performance pieces, sculpture, and designing architecture.

Ai Weiwei returned to China, in 1993, to attend his father, who was terminally ill. In China, Ai began exploring the local antique markets and buying antiquities to use in installations, performance pieces, and as Pop/Conceptual art ready-mades.

In Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn, Ai documents a performance piece in which a Han dynasty vessel is purposely dropped and destroyed.

This seemingly wanton act was meant to highlight not only the destruction of traditional Chinese culture under Communism but also the concept of creation through destruction. Antiquities have provided a base for many of Ai’s works on the theme of cultural loss not only during the Cultural Revolution but also from the influence and predation of Western capitalism.

Chapter Review Questions

How did Daoism influence the development of Chinese landscape painting?

Explain the difference between “professional” artists and “scholar” artists.

What is propaganda art and how was it used during the Maoist era?

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