India-China Contacts

Renewed & Intensified

By: Maria Victoria
Lacaden :]
THE TANG DYNASTY (A.D. 618-
906)
• Tang China was the largest & most
powerful country in the world.
• Li Yuan, 1st T’ang emperor. Known by his
temple name “Kao Tsu” began as a
contender for the rule of the Sui dynasty.
• Li Shih Mhin, 2nd emperor; known as Tai
T’sung, succeeded to the throne by
mrdering 2 brothers & forcing the abdiction
of his fatherbut he became 1 of the most
greatest emperors China has known.
• The years of T’ang were brilliant times of
arts & culture.
• Exotic troupes of asian girls became the
Late T’ang paintings show Imperial
entertainments w/ensembles of srings,
winds, &percussion, & choreographic plans
for bands & dancers have also been
perserved.
• Poetry was the greatest glory of the
period. Nearly 50,000works by some
2,000 T’ang poets have been perserved.
• Heroic sculpture of Buddhas was a
feature of middle T’ang.
• Several new sects of Budhhism were
introduced by Indian missionaries & at
the same time both Christian & Jewish
communities developed.
• Painting played a major role in the culture
of the era, &painters were important court
figures.
• The greatest masters of figure painting of
the dynasty was Wu Tao-tzu, who did 300
wall paintings in temples at Lo-yang &
Ch’ang-an.
• A painter of horses was a great favourite
in an era when military steeds were a
matter of life & death & when court ladies
played a form of solo.
• Landscape painting was dedicated by
Wang Wei, who was an official at the
court in western capital.
• Pottery made huge strides after the
sterility of the 6Dynasties period. Finishes
in white porcelain, three-colour pottery
&figurines, stoneware w/a rich black
glaze, & a type of celadon all were
developed by T’ang potters; & in keeping
• Metalwork &jewelry of the period
included much silverware. Ritual objects
included foreign shapes among the
traditional Chinese forms.
• Silver & gold vessels were no longer cast
but “raised” into bowl shape by
hammering thin sheets; such vessels for
drinking were double thicknesses
soldered together w/an insulating layer of
air between them.
• Decorated bronze mirrors were also
popular. The T’ang dynasty-like most-
rose in duplicity &murder, & it subsuded
into a kind of anarchy; but at its apex in
the early 8th century, the splendour of its
arts &its cultural milieu made it a model
• Chinese palace
architecture
continued to
influence
Budhhist
architecture,
although some
examples seen
in the
Dunhuang wall
paintings of the
paradise
• Between the Wei
and Tang dynasties
the incoporeal
visionary style in
both painting &
sculpture began to
change into a stiffly
columnar form. After
about A.D. 560 this stiff
style became more
fluid, the figures
began to shift the
weight to one foot, &
a graceful rhythmic
pose for bodhisattva
• Perhaps sculpture best
expressed the new vigor of
the Budhhist faith. Although
much was destroyed in the
great persecution of the
grandeur of this art. Painted
stone reliefs decorated the
cave temples at Longmen,
• At Dunhuang clay or stucco over the
soft stone core continued, as well as
sculptures made entirely of clay upon a
wooden armature.
• Owing to a shortage of metals
for coinage, with which the
court hoped to pacify fierce
borders tribes, most of the
larger bronze images were
melted down by order of the
court in the 9th century.
Reaction to this order may
have been the cause of the
resulting persection of
buddhism as well as other
THE BODHISATTVA
• Indicative of renewed Indian contacts, which
increase in the last years of the Sui & early
Tang dynasty.
• The figures stand in graceful poses, dressed
in Indian garments and jewelry.
• The ‘Cult of the Bodhisattva’(budhhists saw
the bodhisattva as saving helpers) served a
very real human need. “humans felt the desire
for some subject of their spiritual aspirations,
for someone to whom they could confide their
difficulties & who could interceede with the
Body of Essence on their behalf.
THE MATURE TANG ART
• By 18th
century,
‘swelling,
plump bodies
& clinging
draperies’
indicate
strong Indian
influence, &
the Budhhas
• The gilt bronze
Budhha
preaching the 1st
sermon is a very
obvius imitation of
the Gupta stone
version of
Sarnath, w/c was
justly famous
throughout Asia,
but it is “fatter”
MATURE TANG ART

• By the time Zhou

Fang, the style in
ladies had become
amplified &was more
like that of the tomb
figurine of the late
8th century.
SECULAR PAINTING
• Landscape as a subject became more
important in the Tang. It was used as a
setting for narrative or historical paintings.
• “What we see 1st, w/c is entirely wrong, is
a single point in the journey being
portrayed at a single moment in time.” We
see it like we see a photograph. And by
doing so we miss the narrative--the
continuity in time--that the painting
contains..
• One of the most
powerrful of Tang
animal sculptures is
the small white
marble lion. The
powerful
musculature
&dynamic vigor
admirable
expressions of the
Tang vitality.
• Most of these were
made of fired clay,
Paints,potteries,etc.
Li Chao
Longmen
Yen Li-
Pen
Wu Tao-
Tzu