Asian Art History: Unit 2 China: Terms

Paleolithic

earliest period of human history in China, simple stones, hunter and gathers

Neolithic

More permanent settlements, pottery, jade carving, ancestor worship

Ex: Vessel with human head, 8000-2000 BCE, Banpo village

Functional pottery with some symbolic elements, not just purely functional

Oracle bones

Shang dynasty (1600-1045 BCE) method of divination where animal bones were heated and the cracks would be read

Piece-Mold Method

method used during the Shang period (1600-1045 BCE) for bronze casting, allowed for complex patterns like taotie

Ex: Cooking vessel, fangding with taotie mask

Taotie masks

animal hybrid face motif found in Shang dynasty bronzes, a beast known for eating its own body warning against greed

Zhou Dynasty

when the idea of the ideal royal city first came to be, development of lacquerware

Filial piety

Confucian virtue stressing loyalty and respect to one’s parents and elders, popular theme in Han art where confucianism became the official state philosophy

First Emperor/ Qin Shi Huangdi

the first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huangdi, unified China and started the Great Wall, know for book burning and harsh legalist rule

Build his Tumulus full of terracotta soldiers acting as mingqi to help protect him in the afterlife

By mixing a different number of models, the artisans were able to create hundreds of unique looking faces showcasing a sophisticated system for mass production

Reveals a complex understanding of the Afterlife, how important the emperor was, and sets a precedent for other emperors

Daoism

emphasized harmony with nature, simplicity, and symmetry, shown in art with landscapes, emptiness and the smallness of people

Ex: Poet on a Mountaintop by Shen Zhou, lots of empty space, reclusion, small poet and big mountain

Ex: Lady of Dai’s funerary banner, shows symmetry with two dragons, sun moon, and Lady Dai ascending to immortality