Page 79 - The Arts of China, By Michael Sullivan Good Book

was relaxed. Under the Later Han, the emergence of the scholar-
official class, the decline of the rigid Confucian order at court, and
the corresponding rise of Taoist individualism all combined to re-
duce the importance and activity of these largely anonymous
professionals. By the end of the dynasty there had come into being
a gulf between the intellectual aristocracy on the one hand and the
unlettered craftsmen on the other which was to have a profound
influence on the character of later Chinese art.
The wonders of Ch'ang-an and Loyang are vividly described in
theju rhapsodies on the Han capitals by Chang Heng and Ssu-ma
Hsiang-ju, and though their beauties may have been somewhat
exaggerated, some idea of the scale of the palace and government
buildings can be gauged from the fact that the audience hall of the
Wei-yang Palace at Ch'ang-an was over 400 feet long—consider-
ably longer than the T'ai-ho-tien, its counterpart in latter-day Pe-
king. To the west of the capital, Han Wu Ti built a pleasure palace,
linked to the Wei-yang Palace within the city by a covered two sto-
rey gallery ten miles long. At Loyang the palace lay in the centre of
the city with a park behind it, built up with artificial lakes and hills
into a fairy landscape in which the emperor could indulge his
Taoist fancies. Other parks further from the capital and likewise
landscaped on a colossal scale were stocked with all manner of
game birds and beasts—some brought as tribute from remote cor-
ners of the empire. From time to time a vast imperial hunt, or
rather slaughter, was organised, followed by lavish feasting and
entertainments. Theju poems describe these extraordinary spec-
tacles, in which, by some Lconardesque device, P'cng-lai and
K'un-lun, with wild animals fighting on their slopes, might be
made to appear out of a cloud of smoke while attendants in galler-
ies overhead crashed great boulders together to simulate thunder.
These hunts among mountains, and the wild, extravagant orgies
that followed them, were to become favourite subjects in Han art.
The palace gateways were marked by pairs of tall watchtowers ARCHITECTURE
(ch'ikh), while within the palace precincts stood multistoreyed pa-
vilions (lou) or towers (t'ai) which were used for entertainment,
for admiring the view, or simply for storage. When Loyang
burned in a.d. 1 85, the Cloud Tower ( Ym-t'ai) went up in flames,
and with it a huge collection of paintings, books, records, and ob-
r ,
These great mansions come vividly before our eyes as we read 79 Gateway to a palace or mansion.
Rubbing from brick relief. From
such poems as the Chao Hun, a passionate appeal addressed by an Szechwan. Han Dynasty.
59