Chinese Art History Midterm Exam

Iowa State University, ARTH 3800X

What is this?

Rectangular Bronze Cauldron (ding or fangding)

What dynasty or time period is this from?

Shang dynasty, 12th–11th century BCE

Which best describes the work?

It is a bronze fanding featuring liewen designs and a toatie mask, made at the end of the Shang period

What is this?

Square bronze wine vessel (fang)

What dynasty or time period is this from?

Warring States Period (5th – 3rd century BCE)

What is this?

Jade burial suit bound with gold wire excavated from the tomb of a King of Chu

What dynasty or time period is this from?

Western Han Dynasty (206 BCE-9 CE)

Which best describes the work?

It is from a Han tomb and made of nephrite

What is this?

Kneeling Archer, terracotta, Emperor of Qin’s Terracotta Army

What dynasty or time period is this from?

Qin Dynasty, 221 – 210 BCE

What best describes this work?

It is made primarily of terracotta and shows modular production spearheaded by local engineers

What is this?

Acrobats, No. 5 (strong man) and No. 2 (upraised arm), terracotta

What dynasty or time period is this from?

Qin Dynasty, 3rd century BCE

Where were these found?

In the Qin Emperor’s mausoleum in their own pit, possibly demonstrating autumn rites

What is this?

A Woman, A Phoenix, and a Dragon, ink on silk

What dynasty or time period is this from?

Warring States period, 3rd century B.C.

This is possibly a very early version of what kind of object?

Mingjing

What is this?

Funerary Banner with the portrait of Lady Dai, ink and color on silk

What dynasty or time period is this from?

Han dynasty, early 2nd century B.C.

What is this?

Stone sarcophagus of Yuan Mi

What dynasty or time period is this from?

(d. 523), Northern Wei Dynasty

What do the sides show?

Imagery of scenes of filial piety intertwined with the heavenly realms

What is this?

Funerary sarcophagus featuring scenes of filial piety

What dynasty or time period is this from?

Northern Wei period, ca. 525 CE

What does this sarcophagus feature?

Bangti

What is this?

Gu Kaizhi, The Admonitions of the Instructress to the Court Ladies, ink and color on silk

What dynasty or time period is this from?

Tang dynasty (618-907)

What does this handscroll feature?

A third century text by Zhang Hua

What is this?

Thousand-eyed, Thousand-armed Guanyin Bodhisattva

What dynasty or time period is this from?

Tang Dynasty, Library Cave, Dunhuang

What is the subject of this painting?

Guanyin Bodhisattva

What is this?

Mogao Cave 72, south wall

What dynasty or time period is this from?

9th – 10th century, Five Dynasties period, Dunhuang, China

What is true about this mural?

It features stories about ruixiang

What is this?

Printed images of the Buddha, paper

What dynasty or time period is this from?

Tang dynasty, Dunhuang, China

This work shows multiple?

One-by-one printed images of a buddha

What is this?

Guo Xi, Old Trees, Level Distance, handscroll, ink and color on silk

What dynasty or time period is this from?

Nothern Song, 11th century CE, China

This handscroll was likely?

Made for a retiring friend in the Northern Song

What is this?

Guo Xi, Early Spring, ink and color on silk

What dynasty or time period is this from?

Northern Song Dynasty, year 1072

What best describes this?

all of the above

What is this?

Zhang Zeduan, Qingming scroll, handscroll, ink and color on silk.

What dynasty or time period is this from?

Northern Song Dynasty, 12th century CE, China.

What is unusual about this painting?

The visual content of the painting does not obviously relate to its title

DIng

a bronze ritual cauldron, often either globular (tripod) or squared, called a fangding, on four legs.

Oracle Bone

an animal bone, typically made from turtle in ancient China, used for divination.

Liewen

design, literally meaning “thunder pattern.”

Piece-mold casting

A casting technique by which bronze is made by pouring metal into clay molds that are first formed around a clay model, cut away in equal sections, and then rearranged around the reduced clay model.

Taotie

relates to a spirit, an ancestor, derived from the mask.

Bi

a flat disk with hollowed at center, sometimes with a blank surface or with incised patterns and designs

Cong

A hollowed jade tube with a squared exterior

Dao

means “the path,” the principal concept in Daoism as developed by Zhuangzi (350 – 275 BCE)

Fu Hao

wife of King Wuding in the late Shang whose burial artifacts exemplify the height of Shang period craftsmanship and objecthood

Jade Flower

term in Daoist alchemy relating to longevity and eternal life, chief principles of jade as articulated in late Warring States & Han dynasty texts.

Hun and Po

The souls that ascends and the soul that descends

Nephrite

a hard, fibrous silicate of varied colors

Terracotta

means “baked earth” and designates unglazed clay works fired between 900 -1050 C.

Lacquer

toxic sap that becomes reduced to shiny coating that is highly resistant to water, insects, and acid, protecting the works from rot and damage.

Stele

stone tablet with inscription, often recording or commemorating a historical event, eulogizing a figure, etc.

Auspiciousness

good fortune; foretelling of a successful outcome or situation; positive presence

Correlation

instead of a mono-directional story, the imagery is present according to conceptual relationships

Microcosm

A vast and multi-faceted space on a smaller scale and in a condensed version

Mingjing

“name banner,” is made to indicate the Jiu (body in its permanent home) of the deceased, hung up beside the deceased’s coffin.

Mt. Kunlun

the realm of immortals in ancient Chinese cosmology

Polycentrism

No single center; instead, multiple systems co-existing in one space

Portrait

literally, reproducing a known person’s lifelikeness; conceptually, serving as a representation

Tu

means chart or diagram; a kind of template for action, meant to be engaged with physically and not only read

Confucianism

Philosophical system attributed to a historical figured by the name of Master Kong (Kongzi or Kongfuzi, romanized as Confucius), serving as social code

Filial Piety

behaving with the utmost respect according to familial rules and codes

Paragons

exemplars

Tuoba Wei

a powerful clan that ruled northern China from 386 – 584 CE, unifying the north in 439.

Bangti

an identifying inscription or label, next to the images

Handscroll

a painting format that develops in China during the Six Dynasties period in which a horizontal painting unfolds in sections from right to left.

Six Laws

Xie He’s theories on painting, of which the first on spirit resonance (energy transmitted from the artist into the work) was perhaps the most enduring as a focal point.

Bodhisattva

an enlightened being who decides to stay back in the worldly realm in order to help sentient beings reach enlightenment

Buddha

an enlightened being, also the historical Sakyamuni Buddha who lived in India in the 5th century BCE

Dharma

the Buddhist teachings

Guanyin

Literally means “perceiving sound” in Chinese, one of the most popular and important bodhisattvas, and is the bodhisattva of compassion.

Mudra

hand gestures that signal various moments of the Buddha’s life, and effectuate certain processes in ritual

Sutra

a Buddhist doctrinal text

Chan

Buddhist meditation, which sometimes involves visualization (guan) practices

Ruixiang

a divine image that possesses magical power and can act on its own

Transformation Tableau

two-dimensional compositions that encapsulate a sutra’s teachings.

Zhou

means spell or incantation (not unique to Buddhism), and is a catchall word including both mantras (esoteric Buddhism) and dharanis (exoteric Buddhism) utterances.

Frontispiece

illustration at the front of a manuscript

Shanshui

word for landscape in Chinese, literally means “mountain water”

Xiesheng

“drawn from life”

Colophons

inscriptions with publication information

Jiehua

technique of ruled-line drawing, common for minute, intricate depictions of architecture