Mass and Module Production in China

Early Chinese Cultures

• 2 river system

  • Huang River and Yangtze River

• North: dry, harsh, mountainous

  • Yellow River named for its sediment-heavy appearance

• South: green, humid

• Yangshao (coloured pots) Culture

  • ~5000 BCE, Middle Yellow River

• Longshan Culture

  • ~3000 BCE, Lower Yellow River, Shandong Province

• Liangzhu Culture

  • ~2500 BCE. jade prisms (cong) and discs(bi) used in burials

Qin Dynasty

• ‘China’ is a modern concept

  • Zhongguo had the connotation of a culturally distinct core with peripheral tribes

  • Qin Dynasty -> first unified kingdom 221-207 BCE

Terracotta Army

• Xi’an, Gansu Province

• tomb of First Emperor of Qin

• discovered 1974

• giant palace built over the tomb

• original mass production

  • made in parts and assembled

  • similar to writing system, module production

• no repetition over thousands of soldiers

  • mold for faces, then taken apart and reassembled

Purple Pigments in Xi’an Necropolis

• synthesised by Taoist alchemists as a byproduct of tech developed for imitating jade with barium-containing glasses

Bronze Working

• modular production

• casting of taotie mythical animal

• clay model made

• soft clay pressed around to form mold

• bronze poured into hardened mold

• some bronzes elaborate for ritual purposes

• China’s Bronze Age ~3000 BCE

  • Shang Dynasty had bronze, writing, walls, etc

  • Fu Hao's tomb 1250 BCE

    • hundreds of bronze objects. jade, stone, ivory, shell, bone, pottery

  • bronze working started in Xia Dynasty

• Warring States Period (475-224 BCE) bronze became a personal luxury not just for ritual purposes

Porcelain

• module production

• different firing temperatures

• porcelain fired at 1300-1500C

Tang Dynasty Architecture

• popular across Asia

• bracketing system meant no nails were needed

Modularity vs Individuality

• woodblock, tile printing all modular

• individuality in elite art