Page 62 - The Arts of China, By Michael Sullivan Good Book

also a way of escape from the hazards and uncertainties of the
times into the world of the imagination. It was, in fact, through
Taoism, with its intuitive awareness of things that cannot be mea-
sured or learned out of books, that the Chinese poets and painters
were to rise to the highest imaginative flights. The state of Ch'u
was the heart of this new liberating movement. The great mystical
philosopher-poet Chuang Tzu (c. 350-275) belonged in fact to the
neighbouring state of Sung, but, as Fung Yu-lan has observed, his
thought is closer to that of Ch'u, while Ch'u Yuan and Sung Yu,
who in their rhapsodic poems known as sao poured out a flood of
such passionate feeling, were both natives of Ch'u. It is perhaps no
accident that not only the finest poetry of this period but also the
earliest surviving paintings on silk should have been produced
within its boundaries. 1
During the early Warring States period, however, the Chung-
yuan of southern Shcnsi and northern Honan was still the heart of
Chinese civilisation, protected by the defensive walls which were
being constructed at intervals along China's northern frontiers.
The most ancient section of wall was built about 353 B.C. across
modern Shensi, not only to keep the marauding nomads out but,
equally, to keep the Chinese in and to attempt to prevent that dc-
Sinicisation which in the Six Dynasties was to accompany the for-
eign occupation of large areas of North China.
Until recently, archaeologists had given much less attention to
the remains of the Chou Dynasty than had been devoted to the
Shang. Before the Second World War, only one important late
Chou site had been scientifically excavated, at Hsin-chcng in
Honan, where were found tombs containing bronzes that span the
years from the baroque extravagances of middle Chou to the sim-
pler forms and more intricate decoration of the early Warring
States. At the same time, the local farmers living between Loyang

51 Chariot burial. Lui-h-ko, Hui-hsicn.
Honan. Warring States period

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