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CALLIGRAPHY
PAINTING
SCULPTURE
ARCHITECTURE 

CARPETS
CLOISONNÉ
JADE 
SILK 
PORCELAIN

of many dynasties. Up to the Warring States period (403-221 BC), arts were generally produced by nameless craftsmen for the current emperors, but during the Han dynasty (206 BC-AD 220), the elite classes of China began to develop a passion for spending their leisure time engaged in artistic endeavors. A division arose between the handiwork of professional, but lower class, artisans and that of the amateur, but upper crust, masters.

Thus it was that the educated gentry was driven to excel in many art fon-ns. In particular, the "Four Arts of a Scholar" were especially highly valued and refined by the Chinese literati. Two of these are not visual arts. The subtle sounds of the guqin, or zither, preformed by a musician of the highest caliber and the strategic maneuvers of a game of weiqi, better known in the West by the Japanese name Go, executed by a formidable player are indeed arts which have also achieved great levels of respect and admiration over the years. However, it is the other two, the arts of calligraphy and painting, which have over the years become the most treasured of all art forms in China.

There has been, however, no dearth of other visual art forms cultivated by everyone from anonymous laymen to famous intellectuals throughout history. Architecture, sculpture, pottery, jade carving, rnetajwork, textiles, and others are also timeworn forms of expression.

Traditionally there has been no higher form of visual art than the beautiful brushmanship of eminent calligraphers in China. Though it permeates many other artistic traditions, the emphasis on the rhythmic movement of the line created by the flow of the artist's hand is most highly felt in calligraphy.

of a masterpiece is held to indicate forethought and confidence on the part of the writer. In fact, during the Tang, calligraphy was thought to be so demonstrative of character that it was employed as one of the criterion for appointing high officials in the civil service.

The brush strokes of the masters have never been confined simply to manuscripts or to the captions on paintings, but adorn gates, temples, tombs, mountains, and caves all over China.

 through the simple addition of three hairs, just three quick strokes, to his chin. Prior to the Song dynasty, human figures were popular subjects for paintings. The few surviving Zlioii and Haii dynasty paintings are rich with representations of political pomp and ceremony. During the Tang, the influence of Buddhism and a fascination with the exotic both found their way into painting, making Buddhist deities and foreign visitors into common subjects.

China is more widely renowned for its landscape painting, which, from the Song on, was indeed the culture's most prominent genre. Chinese society, predominantly agricultural throughout much of history, has always stressed the importance of understanding and living in harmony with nature; according to Daoist thought, for instance, the human presence is insignificant in comparison to the vastness and beauty of the universe. For Song painters, painting from this perspective also represented a secular vision new to visual art, one which was not beholden to either political or sacred powers. In this era, widely considered to be the golden age of Chinese painting, bamboo, jade, dragons, cranes, orchids, winter plums, and gnarled pine trees commonly take center stage. Mi Fei, Ma Yuan, and Xia Gui are among the most famous figures from this period.

By the middle of the 19th century, Chinese artists, most faraously those in the cosmopolitan hub of Shanghai, had begun to feel the influence of Western modernist artistic movements. Figural themes began to receive more attention, as did birds, flowers, and other micro-components of the natural world, at the expense of the macro-level landscape panoramas favored in previous centuries. By the early 20th century, Chinese artists were visiting France and Germany and drawing inspiration from European movements like Impressionism. A few artists advocated a fusion of modem Western and traditional Chinese styles. Prominent among these was Xu Beihong, who used the traditional Chinese brush to mimic the realistic effect of pencil and chalk and whose remarkable figure paintings were a primary influence on post-1949 Socialist Realist artists.

After the Communist victory, human figures once again became the chief subject for painters-this time, however, they were neither aristocratic leaders nor spiritual deities. In the earlier days of Communism, when leaders declared that aesthetic virtue was determined by political sentiment, sentimental and nonabstract representations of laborers, farmers, and patriotic commoners predominated. Woodblock prints, which were cheaper to produce and purchase than paintings, also grew in popularity. During the Cultural Revolution, many traditional pieces of art that were deemed politically incorrect were destroyed.

After the death of Mao, the situation for artists relaxed considerably. The appearance of abstract Western styles such as Cubism and of non-political subject matter such as the nude figure marked the 1980s as a period of increased @tic freedom. Meanwhile, Socialist Realist propaganda painting declined precipitously, and formerly exiled artists returned to the country to foster a new artistic flowering that continues to the present day,

Chinese sculpture has never been awarded the same respect as painting and calligraphy; sculptors have traditionally been regarded as craftsmen, and not as artists, and most sculpture has served some ceremonial, religious, or practical use. Very often, sculptors, who did not think of themselves as aesthetic creators, sought to represent, literally and realistically, the figures of everyday life, in contrast to painters, whose aesthetic concerns tended to

ensure that their works would be stylized and idealized. Consequently, the remains of ancient sculptures are quite helpful to historians hoping to learn about daily life in those times.

The oldest Chinese sculptures are small, white marble figurines that date to the Shang dynasty. In the Han, sculpture had all the vividness of popular entertainment; figures tended to be small, boldly colored carvings of human, animal, and supernatural life. Once Buddhism entered China, it became a forceful influence on sculpture, and elaborate carvings of deities, particularly the many-limbed Avalokiteshvara, proliferated. By the Tang, Buddhist cave temples had become the sites of some of the richest sculptural invention in the world, as life-size and largerthan-life carvings of deities in bronze and limestone were produced.

The similarly practical art of pottery provides more important clues as to the values and practices of ancient Chinese society. In the Shang dynasty, lacquer glazes and jade carvings bedecked coffins, weapons, and furniture. By the Tang, Chinese ceramics had acquired more of a decorative purpose, and the whiteware and tricolored glazes of this period were slowly turning into prized commodities in international trade. During the Ming, Chinese lacquers and vases were sought-after items as far away as Europe, and the pre-eminence of China on the international ceramics scene can still be seen in the use of the English term "china." The famous blue-and-white vases of the Ming were produced in the city of Jingdezhen (see p. 393), in present-day Jiangxi province. Production of the Yixing ceramics was centered in Suzhou (see p. 320).

 

ARCHITECTURE

Typically constructed of wood, most ancient Chinese buildings rotted, burned, or collapsed many centuries ago; few examples of Chinese architecture still standing today date back further than the Ming (1368-1644). Of those that weathered the ravages of time and the elements until the modern era, many sadly did

not survive the destruction of the Cultural Revolution (l9ffi69, see p. 32). Fortunately, while individual edifices have perished, the principles of Chinese architecture persist, safeguarded for generations by Chinese masterbuilders. Since the blueprints for ChinzCs vanished monuments have never been razed from the national consciousness, much is still known today about ancient architecture.

Whether they are private residences or public offices, all important buildings in China face south. Several explanations have been proposed for this custom, practiced as far back as the Shang (1600-1050 BC). To the Chinese, the Emperor's palace represents the North Star, from which he supervises the earthly world to the South. Similarly, the family elder is lord of his household and thus aligns his domain with the supreme ruler's. A less symbolic theory suggests that the custom reflects the Chinese indisposition toward their northern neighbors, the barbarian invaders of their past.

Another remarkable design element in Chinese architecture has always been the ornate and elegantly curved, yet massive, roof of many a house, hall, and temple. Concave, with an extensive overhang, and seemingly too cumbersome to be held up by the thin walls below, the roof often dominates the rest of the building. The origins of the concavity of this uniquely Chinese roof design have proven elusive to art historians; everything from a particular Chinese admiration for the curvilinear form, demonstrated elsewhere in their calligraphy, to the persistence of a supposed time when the Chinese lived in tents has been proposed in explanation.

Typically, the various chambers of residential buildings are arranged around a central courtyard. This design principle influenced the construction of both modest private residences and opulent palaces, perhaps most obviously the Forbidden City, and lends a unique sense of openness to traditional Chinese buildings.

Temples have always been a significant part of the Chinese architectural landscape and constitute many of the more ancient buildings still standing today. Unlike the religious structures of the West, Chinese temples were designed according to the same principles by which secular buildings were planned, so that temples and palaces often look very similar. In addition, there are essentially no architectural distinctions between Buddhist, Daoist, and Confucian temples, all of which retain the same directional orientation and ornate roofs one finds in secular structures. A striking exception is the Buddhist cave temple, the origins of which can be found in India.

For eons, the Chinese have defended themselves from their attackers by building walls around their homesteads, hometowns, and even their homeland. Walled cities were a commonplace in earlier centuries. Today, only portions of a few remain,

most notably around the cities of Xian, Nanjing, and Pingyao. This timeless tradition of wall-building gave way to the grander notion of a walled kingdom during the Qin dynasty (221-206 BC) when construction of the Great Wall of China began. Stretching over 4,500 miles and the product of years of brutal conscript labor, this structure,, intended as a practical tool rather than an aesthetic creation, nonetheless stands among the world's most awesome architectural achievements.

Another great functional architectural genre is the tomb, elaborate examples of which were built for rulers as early as the Qin. These consisted of massive, multiroomed complexes constructed underground or into the sides of mountains, usually filled with paintings,sculptures, and whatever objects might be important in the afterlife. The thousands of terracotta soldiers buried with the Qin emperor Shi Huangdi are one extreme example of the solicitude shown for dead rulers.

Naturally, extensive contact with Europe had resulted in considerable transitions in Chinese architecture by the 20th century. Prior to the 1920s, plenty of European-style buildings had been erected in the treaty ports of China, but all of them had been designed and constructed by foreign architects. In 1925, however, a group of foreign-educated Chinese architects founded the Society for the Study of Chinese Architecture, which sought to find ways of adapting traditional Chinese designs to modern needs. The influence of this movement is more evident in Taiwan than on the contemporary mainland. After 1949, utility took priority over aesthetic concerns, and the staggering amounts of construction that have taken place since then reflect this; China has more than its fair share of uninteresting tile highrises. However, not all examples of Communist architecture are so bland; political structures, such as the Great Hall of the People and Mao Zedong's mausoleum in Be&g, exhibit a sense of grandeur and symbol all their own.

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