Page 109 - China, 5000 years : innovation and transformation in the arts

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Fig. 7. Diagram of tomb No. 1, Mawangdui, Changslia, Fig. 9. Decoration on front and left panel oj third coffin
Hunan Province. After 16S BCE. (from the outside), tomb No. 1, Mawangdui, Changslia,

Hunan Province. After 16S BCE.

tombs such figurines were usually not clustered

together in a group, apart from other tomb

contents. Instead, one or more figurines were

—installed with each type ot tomb furnishing some

with horses and chariots, others with kitchenwares,

—yet others with writing equipment in separate

chambers of the tomb. In this way, the figurines

resemble individual puppets in a series of stage sets

that represent the various sections of a household.

'K Northern figurines, on the other hand, were often

1 grouped together in an extensive representation of
' a single social setting. For example, in the Zhangqiu

g—[•l^-i' 1 j« tomb, arranged in a single tableau, were thirty-eight
^f''^- ^m^,t^ji ^prit\
: clay sculptures: twenty-six human figures (including

F(g, S, Decoration on front panel of second coffin (from dancers, musicians, and audience members); five

the outside), tomb No. 1, Mawangdui, Changslia, Hunan musical instruments; and eight birds (fig. 2). The

Province. After 168 BCE. role of such a "set" as a self-contained tableau is

southern figurines, however, go far beyond their reinforced by its miniature form. Almost all
materials to include their manner of representation northern figurines of the Warring States period are
and grouping.
—hand-modeled from soft clay; their size they arc
—often merely seven to ten centimeters tall allowed

only rudimentary representation ot faces and
costumes. 8

Most Chu figurines have brightly painted clothes We wonder why such tiny figures were given wide
and facial features, and some of the figurines attest
to an intense effort to mimic live human beings. currency in funerary art. The answer must be found
Two extraordinary specimens from Baoshan tomb
Number 2, for example, are each more than a in the specific artistic goals of the miniature. It has
been suggested that miniature representations most
meter tall (fig. 3). Their ears, arms, hands, and feet consciously create an interior space and time 111 a
were carved separately and then attached. Their fictional world. Unlike realism, which attempts to

mustaches and braids were made of real hair, and map art upon life, the metaphoric world ot the
silk robes originally covered their bodies. In Chu
immature skews the temporal and spatial relations
of the everyday world. Buried in a tomb, "the

REALITIES OF LIFE AFTER DEATH 107