Arts of China

Yellow River

North river along which Chinese Neolithic cultures developed, providing drinking water, irrigation, and a mode of trade and transportation

Yangzi River

South river relative to China's Neolithic civilization, providing drinking water, irrigation, trade and transportation

Anyang

a modern city in central China, once the capital city of the Shang dynasty from 1300-1050 BCE

Sichuan basin

 a ceremonial/sacrificial pit (c.1300-1100 BCE) that was discovered (1986) and excavated (1996, 2020) at the Chengdu Plain of Sanxingdui, from which archeologists discovered many bronze artifacts

artifact

man-made object

motif

a repeated design element in a work of art, including compositional features or images

ceramics

objects made from fired clay

earthenware

most common type of ceramic that is fired at a low temperature and porous

slip

a mixture of clay and water used to join clay elements or to decorate ceramics with pigment before they are glazed and fired

coil-clay method

the first ceramic techniques to make basins, jars, or large containers, by stacking ropes of clay and slowly changing their diameter and smoothing the edges of apparent separate rings into a single cohesive piece

register

vertical level

taotie

a stylized monster face-mask design pattern commonly found on ancient Chinese bronzes with symmetrically arranged eyes, ears, horns, snout, and jaw

form of artworks

 the line, color, shape, texture, material, and composition

caryatid

weight-bearing pillar in form of human figure

iconography

identifying and studying the subject matter and conventional symbols in works of art

oracle bone

ox shoulder blade bones and tortoiseshells used by Shang rulers for divination

divination

the practice of foretelling the future events or revealing hidden information with the aid of supernatural powers

Di

a supreme deity who controlled the known universe, including nature spirits and ancestral spirits, the center of the Shang people’s religious belief

Bodhisattva

in Buddhism, a being who has attained enlightenment but chooses to remain in this world in order to help others advance spiritually / a potential Buddha

grave goods

objects buried with a body for its sustenance in the afterlife

ancestor worship

tradition of Shang culture to make sacrificial victims to ancestors & place them in their tombs

Xi wang mu

the Queen Mother of West, dating back to the Shang and Zhou dynasties, worshipped as a major deity during the Han dynasty, potentially symbolizing immortality and the yin/female half of the cosmic balance yin and yang

mandate of heaven

an ancient Chinese concept in which Heaven grants the ruler the right to rule, the right dependent upon the ruler’s virtuous conduct

Wu Ding

King of the Shang Dynasty

posthumous title

honorary titles given to royalty and sometimes others post-mortem

feudalism

early Zhou kings appointed relatives and other noblemen to rule different regions across the empire in the name of the king

Huangdi

imperial ruler

Fu Hao

one of the many concubines of King Wu Ding who exercised the military power he granted her in at least 20 battles within her lifetime

Filial Piety

the deference that individuals show to their parents and that married women show to parents-in-law

Confucianism

a system of ethical and philosophical teaching associated with Confucius that stress the importance of good government, social order, and harmonious and moral living

Sima Qian

Shakyamuni

Nv Shi

Silk Road