Page 135 - The Arts of China, By Michael Sullivan Good Book

Math China in the Ting Dynasty.
imagination nor the heart. For the rest. Tang art has incompara-
ble vigour, realism, dignity; it is the art of a people thoroughly at
home in a world they knew to be secure. There is an optimism, an
energy, a frank acceptance of tangible reality which gives the same
character to all T'ang art, whether it be the most splendid fresco
from the hand of a master or the humblest tomb figurine made by
the village potter.
By the time of his death in 649, T'ai-tsung had established
Chinese control over the flourishing central Asian kingdoms of
Kucha and Khotan, the conquest of Korea had been begun, Tibet
linked to the royal house by marriage, and relations established
with Japan and the Southeast Asian kingdoms of Funan and
Champa. Ch'ang-an, laid out by the Sui, now became a city of a
size and splendour rivalling, if it did not surpass, Byzantium. It
was planned on a grid seven miles by six. In the northern sector lay
the government buildings and the imperial palace, which was later
moved to a cooler, less crowded site outside the northeast corner
of the city. In its streets one might have encountered priests from
115
Copyrighted material