Art and Architecture in the Ancient World: East Asia

China

In the second half of the twentieth century, Chinese archaeology entered its golden age. Although China is arguably the oldest continuous civilization in human history, serious archaeological research into its ancient past did not occur until after the establishment of the People’s Republic. The literal translation for the traditional Chinese name for the country is “the middle kingdom,” meaning the center of Earth. Chinese religion was animistic in its earliest form, leading to Daoism, a kind of natural mysticism first expressed by Laozi (born 604 b.c.e.). Ancient China was eventually dominated by the ethical teachings of Confucius (551-479 b.c.e.), who prescribed a conservative philosophy founded on ritual, decorum, and social order. Buddhism arrived in China in the early first century c.e. and by the sixth century became the most popular religion.

Neolithic

Significant finds from China’s Neolithic period (6000-2200 b.c.e.) include pottery, jade congs, and religious complexes decorated with murals and clay statues of female figures. One clay bowl, made by the Yangshao people from Banpo, near Xi’an, Shaanxi, has decorative marks along the rim resembling an early form of Chinese writing. Congs are jade tubes encased in rectangular blocks carved with reliefs of abstract masks representing animals, deities, or ancestors. The earliest congs are found in Neolithic burials from Fan Shan, Yuyao, in southeastern coastal China. Two large stone buildings containing altars, graves, pottery, jade, murals and statues built by the Hongshan people were found in the modern Liaoning province of northeastern China. These three examples demonstrate that evidence of China’s earliest civilizations can be found at multiple sites, not only in the area surrounding the Yellow River as once believed.

Shang Dynasty

The finest works from the Shang Dynasty (1600-1066 b.c.e.) are the hundreds of bronze vessels found in the royal tombs near Yinxu, or present-day Anyang. The tombs are a tribute to the great wealth, power, and ruthlessness of their leaders, for in addition to objects of great artistry, they contain many human and animal sacrifices. Shang Dynasty bronzes are found in thirty different shapes and contained food, wine, and other offerings to the ancestors. They were created using the complex piece-mold technique for bronze casting, and many weighed more than 240 pounds (109 kilograms). The most compelling feature of these bronzes is their complex surface decoration inspired by woodcarving. Stylized geometric shapes suggesting animals make up most of the designs. The bronzes were found in tombs containing chariots, bells, knives, mirrors, weapons, jade, and oracle bones. Shamans used bones or shells to predict the future by inscribing their surface with questions and heating them until cracks formed. The shaman interpreted the cracks to make a prediction. The questions scratched onto the bones constitute one of the earliest extant forms of Chinese writing.

Zhou Dynasty

The Zhou Dynasty (1066-256 b.c.e.) was home to two of China’s greatest philosophers, Confucius and Laozi. The supreme deity, Tian, dwelled in heaven, and the Zhou kings were called the Sons of Heaven. Traditional large-scale burials were created to commemorate deceased kings and their families. One of the most magnificent was the tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng, discovered in 1994. More than 7,000 artifacts were found in his tomb, including six bronze warrior figures, each weighing 660 pounds (299 kilograms). The Marquis was buried with twenty-one women, thirteen of whom were musicians. Musical instruments including sixty-five bronze bells mounted on a wooden frame surrounded their remains. The bells were precisely calibrated to sound two tones, depending on where they were struck.

Qin Dynasty

Shi Huangdi, king of the Qin state (dynasty, 221-206 b.c.e.), became the first emperor of a united China, built the predecessor of the present Great Wall, numerous palaces, a magnificent tomb, and a network of roads connecting his new kingdom. The Great Wall of China is one of Shi Huangdi’s most renowned accomplishments. Using a huge workforce of convicts and outcasts, he built a 6,000-mile (9,654-kilometer) wall creating a continuous line of defense from the deserts of Central Asia to the eastern coast. The wall was intended to separate the Mongolian grasslands from the settled farmlands of China. It was made of molded clay bricks, fired, and then stacked on top of one another to a height of 15 to 30 feet (4.6-9.1 meters). Research by scholar Arthur Waldron, however, indicates that what is now known as the Great Wall was actually built in the Ming Dynasty in the sixteenth century, and that the wall built by Shi Huangdi was probably destroyed.

The actual burial chamber of Shi Huangdi’s 600-foot-high (183-meter-high) burial mound has not been excavated, although outer areas have been. In 1974, archaeologists excavating three outside chambers of the emperor’s tomb found more than 7,000 life-sized terra-cotta soldiers and two thousand horses. The soldiers and horses were placed in military formation, guarding the approach of the tomb. Ironically, these monumental terra-cotta figures survive only because later Han invaders tried to destroy the tomb. They set fire to the wooden portions of the tomb, causing its walls to collapse, unintentionally burying and preserving the figures. The statues are each painted and individualized by costume, rank, and elaborate hairstyles. Scholars believe many represent portraits of specific individuals in Shi Huangdi’s army. There are archers, cavalry, foot soldiers, even warriors in martial arts positions. Literary sources describe the unexplored chamber as decorated with representations of the stars, rivers, and mountains of Qin.

Han Dynasty

The era of Han Dynasty (206 b.c.e.-220 c.e.) rule ushers in an unparalleled period of peace and prosperity for ancient China. The Silk Road was established, linking China to Rome with a 5,000-mile (8,000-kilometer) trade route. The ancient Romans paid dearly to obtain silk from China, as the technology of silk production was unknown to them. A beautiful painted silk was found covering the innermost coffin of Xin Zhui, the Marquise of Dai, in her tomb (c. 150 c.e.) at Mawangdui, near modern Changsha. This 6-foot-8-inch-long (2-meter-long) T-shaped silk banner is decorated with paintings portraying the three levels of the universe: heaven, Earth, and the underworld. A crow resides in the Sun, a toad in the Moon, which are on either side of the great ancestor of the Han, depicted as a dragon. Beneath this scene lie two intertwined dragons looping through a painted representation of the bi, a circular symbol of heaven usually made of jade. Here, at the gate of heaven, begins the middle zone of Earth, occupied by four women and two men offering gifts. One of these figures is a portrait of the Marquise of Dai leaning on a cane. Fish and other fantastic creatures occupy the underworld represented below.

Although many Han Dynasty tombs contained small pottery figures of soldiers to protect the deceased in the next world, the less powerful substituted objects made of jade, with its magical protective properties, for such miniature funerary armies. In the tomb of the prince of Zhongshan, at Mancheng, Hebei, members of the royal family are encased in magnificent suits made of thousands of jade plates joined together with wires made of gold and silver. Knowledge of the architecture of ancient China is acquired from ceramic house models found in such tombs. One 4-foot-high (1.2-meter-high) clay house model, covered in white slip and decorated with red pigment, survives in excellent condition. It portrays a four-storied home crowned with a watchtower, surrounded on one side by a courtyard. Decorative painting on the walls illustrates posts, beams, foliage, and birds. Literary sources from the Han Dynasty describe palaces from this period decorated with precious stones and metals. This model also shows the elaborate bracketing system supporting broad eves and the tiled roof so characteristic of traditional Chinese architecture.

Six Dynasties

The Six Dynasties period (220-588 c.e.; consisting of the Three Kingdoms, Western and Eastern Jin, and Southern and Northern Dynasties) is described by historians as one of chaos, war, and migration. During the Tartar invasions of the third century c.e., the royal court of China was forced to flee south. Aesthetic theories as well as names of artists appear in the written record for the first time during the Six Dynasties era. Written sources show that the Chinese judged the quality of a painting by its brushstrokes; each line had to express the spirit or qi, representing breath or energy. Painted silk hand scrolls appear at this time and provide some of the finest examples of ancient Chinese painting. One attributed to the great painter Gu Kaizhi (c. 345-c. 406 c.e.) illustrates a Confucian epic entitled Nushi Zhen (third century c.e.; “the admonitions of the instructress to the court ladies”). This hand scroll delineates in word and image edifying examples of wifely virtue. The first illustration portrays Lady Feng protecting her cowering husband from an attacking bear. Another illustration shows two beautifully dressed young women, their robes forming rounded pools of fabric about their feet, floating across the space toward their teacher, to watch her paint just such a hand scroll. Collectors’ seals of later owners on the scroll clutter the otherwise empty setting.

Buddhism reached China with the opening of the Silk Road and was strengthened by the invading Buddhist Tartars. It flourished during the Six Dynasties period, particularly under the patronage of emperor Wudi of Liang (502-577 c.e.), who built many monasteries and temples during his rule, although few survive. The most monumental Buddhist art from ancient China is found among the hundreds of caves cut into the rocks surrounding the Silk Road in the north. The caves and carvings at Yungang in Shanxi are cut from the surrounding rock. Cave 20 contains a 45-foot-high (14-meter-high) sculpture of the Seated Buddha created in 460 c.e. Once protected inside the cave, this severe, massive figure is now exposed to the elements as the front part of the cave has crumbled away. This Buddha has the long earlobes, topknot of wisdom (ushnisha), and the shallow, stylized drapery typical of the artistic tradition of Central Asia.

Sui and Tang Dynasties

Buddhism continued through the Sui Dynasty (581-618 c.e.). During the Tang Dynasty (618-907 c.e.), all classes of Chinese society adopted Buddhism. The Big Wild Goose pagoda in Xi’an is a rare example of ancient Chinese architecture. The architects merged this multistoried variation of the Indian stupa, a burial mound containing Buddhist relics, with the Chinese watchtower structure to create the well-known pagoda form. Although built of masonry, the Big Wild Goose pagoda imitates its wooden predecessors through its relief carvings on the walls, which resemble the bays and brackets of wooden architecture. The pagoda, with its simplicity, symmetry, and projecting roofs for each story, establishes the most enduring form of Chinese architecture imitated throughout East Asia.

Japan

Japanese art and architecture benefited from waves of Chinese and Korean immigrants bringing with them their own distinct art, technology, and religious practices. Shintō, which involves the veneration of nature, is the indigenous religion of Japan. Buddhism, however, arrived on the shores of Japan in 552 c.e. from Korea and was eventually adopted by the Japanese court after a period of clan warfare.

Jōmon period

Neolithic peoples in Japan created remarkable pottery and clay figurines during the Jōmon period (c. 8000-300 b.c.e.), which takes its name from the original cord-marked patterns found on its pottery (jōmon means “cord markings”). These vessels, made in imitation of reed baskets, often have pointed bases. Most have burn marks indicating they were used for cooking. Later, a flat-bottomed storage vessel was developed. The pots were decorated by pressing cords into the damp clay, creating scratchy relief patterns. With time, the rims of Jōmon pots were decorated with elaborate flamelike shapes. Artists also fashioned small human figures called dōgu, usually about 10 inches (25 centimeters) in height. Dōgu have slit or goggle-shaped eyes, heart-shaped faces, and incised tattoo patterns on their bodies. Although their function is unknown, scholars speculate that they act as effigies manifesting a powerful sympathetic magic.

Yayoi and Kofun periods

During the Yayoi period (c. 300 b.c.e.-c. 300 c.e.), the Japanese learned to cast bronze, using it in artistic and more practical objects. During the Kofun period (c. 300-710 c.e.), a large number of keyhole-shaped mound tombs called kofun were built for members of the imperial family, giving the period its name. Rows of clay cylinders and sculptures called haniwa were placed on these tombs. The haniwa come in a variety of forms, most commonly that of warriors or horses, but sometimes they portray shamans, houses, boats, deer, dogs, and monkeys. Unlike Chinese tomb ceramics, haniwa are unglazed, rarely symmetrical and always expressive. It is theorized that they served as a link between the world of the living and the dead. The ancient Shintō shrine at Ise, southwest of Tokyo, was built in the first century c.e. and survives to this day because it is systematically rebuilt every twenty years. The shrine is built entirely from unpainted wood; it has a sharply pitched roof and is supported by wooden posts. A high wooden fence encloses the buildings, punctuated by a torii, or sacred gateway. It is hoped that by passing through the torii, the worshipper will experience rebirth.

Bibliography

Fong, Wen. The Great Bronze Age of China: An Exhibition from the People’s Republic. New York: Metropolitan Museum, 1980.

Hutt, Julia. Understanding Far Eastern Art. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1987.

Pearson, Richard. Ancient Japan. Washington, D.C.: Sackler Gallery, 1992.

Rogers, Howard, ed. China, Five Thousand Years: Innovation and Transformation in the Arts. New York: Guggenheim Museum, 1998.

Sullivan, Michael. The Arts of China. 4th ed. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.