Page 233 - The Arts of China, By Michael Sullivan Good Book

and Yuan dynasties, Buddhism gradually loosened its hold over
the mind and heart of China, so did Buddhist sculpture decline.
Under the Ming revival, what sculpture lacks in spiritual content
it makes up for in vigour—a vigour shown, for example, in the co-
lossal guardian figures of officials, warriors, and animals which
line the "spirit way" leading to the tombs of the Ming emperors
outside Nanking and Peking. The casting of large figures in iron
had developed during the Sung Dynasty as a substitute for the
more precious bronze. The finest of these figures have a simplicity
and compactness of modelling that makes them extremely im-
pressive. Far greater freedom of movement was possible in ce-
ramic sculpture, which now lent an air of gaiety and splendour to
257 Yen-lo-wing(Yama). pottery
the roof ridges of palaces and temples, already glittering with yel-
decorated with coloured glares, '<"-''
low, blue, and green tiles. The boldy conceived figure of a man in ware. Inscribed "Made by Master Ma"
and dated equivalent to 1524. Ming
green-and-brown-glazcd terracotta (Uu-ii) inscribed "Made by-
Dynaity.
Master Ma" and dated equivalent to 1 524, is a splendid example of
the confident manner in which Ming craftsmen revived and trans-
formed the style of the T'ang Dynasty.
The Ming love of colour and of all that made for luxurious living TEXTILES
was satisfied by the cloisonne enamel, the lacquer, and the richly
woven textiles that were worn both by officials and by the wealth-
ier members of the middle class. Figured silks, embroideries, and
brocades have a long history in China: examples of all types going
back to the T'ang Dynasty and earlier have been found in the dry
desert sand of Chinese Turkestan, and are more perfectly pre-
served in the Shosdsin Repository at Nara. Many T'ang motifs
were still in use in the Sung Dynasty, to be revived once again in
the Ming and continued, with some modifications, in the Ch'ing.
The great achievement of the Sung weavers had been the per-
fecting of k'o-ssu, a form of tapestry woven from silk, using a
needle as a shuttle. This technique had been invented in central
Asia, possibly by the Sogdians, improved by the Uighurs, and fi-
nally passed on to the Chinese early in the eleventh century. The
term k'o-ssu, translatable as "cut silk," is descriptive of the vertical
gaps between adjacent areas of colour visible when it is held up to
the light, but other variants suggest that k'o-ssu is probably a trans-
literation of the Persian gazz or Arabic khazz referring to silk and
silk products. After the debacle of 1125-1127, the art was taken to
the Southern Sung court at Hangchow, where an historian records
that k'o-SSU was used for mounting paintings and binding books in
the Imperial Collection. It was also used for robes, decorative
panels, and, most astonishingly, for translating paintings and cal-
ligraphy into the weaver's art. We can form some idea of its micro-
scopic fineness when we realise that whereas the finest Gobelins
tapesty has 8 to 1 1 warp threads to the centimetre, Sung k'o-ssu has
158 Xlagiaan Changing a Ramhoa
up to 24, and 1 16 weft threads per centimetre of warp as against
Walking-Stick into t Dragon K 'v-ssu silk
the 22 of Gobelins. In the Yuan Dynasty, when trade across cen- tapestry. Ming Dynasty.
tral Asia was probably easier than at any other period in history,
panels of k'o-ssu were exported at enormous expense to Europe,