Page 83 - The Arts of China, By Michael Sullivan Good Book

flat, and somewhat coarse treatment this piece is from the techni-
cal point of view more reminiscent of the Sasanian rock-cut reliefs
at Taq-i Bustan in Iran than of anything in early Chinese art. Many
writers have pointed out how appropriate such a monument
would be to a Chinese general whose victories over the Western
nomads were due to the very horses China had acquired from the
enemy and used so effectively against them.
Clearly, however, the Chinese sculptor had not yet mastered
the art of carving in the round on a big scale. Indeed, carving is not
the technique in which he feels happiest. He is more at home in
clay modelling and in the human figures and animals cast from
clay moulds in bronze by the cire-perdue process. The vessel in the
form of a rhinoceros (see Fig. 84) was once inlaid all over the body
with an intricate pattern of scrolls, and only the glassy eye re-
mains; but even with the inlay gone this marvellous piece, found
buried in a field to the west of Sian in 1963, shows how success-
fully the craftsman of Ch'in or early Han was able to combine sur-
face decoration with a lively realism. During the Han Dynasty this
gift for modelling in clay found expression chiefly in the tomb fig-
urines discussed below. These have their spectacular forerunners
in the extraordinary clay figures found in 1975 in a pit to the east of
the tomb of Ch'in Shih-huang-ti. This one pit alone—originally,
it seems, a huge subterranean shed—contained about six thousand
life-size figures of men and horses, with their chariots, while other
similar but smaller pits lie nearby. Each figure is individually fash-
ioned. The legs are solid, the hollow body, head, and arms being
formed of an inner core of coiled strips of clay over which a
"skin" of finer clay was smeared, with the features stuck on or
worked with a tool. The civilian officials and armour-clad soldiers
bearing shining bronze swords were painted, and some bear the
seals of the craftsman and foreman in charge. Unprecedented in
number and size, they may well have been inspired by earlier
straw figures such as Confucius had recommended as a humane
alternative to immolation. To the west of the tomb another
smaller pit was discovered in 1980, in which lay chariots, horses,
and charioteers one-third life-size, of bronze picked out in gold 83 Warrior. Painted terracotta. From
and silver. Taken together with the tomb of the first emperor him- the tomb pit of Ch'in Shih-huang-ti.
Lin-t'ung. Shout. Ch'in Dynasty,
self, this must be one of the most remarkable archaeological sites about 210 B.C.
ever discovered.
Modelling in clay is the first stage in bronze-casting, and some
of the most striking relics of Han art are the bronze figures and an-
imals found in tombs. A particularly beautiful example in gilt
bronze is the kneeling servant girl (Fig. 85) from the tomb of Liu
Sheng's wife Tou Wan, holding a lamp of which the chimney is her
sleeve and arm; while arresting in a more dynamic way is the
bronze horse (Fig. 86) from an Eastern Han tomb discovered in
Kansu in 1969. He is poised as if flying, and one of his hooves rests
lightly on a swallow with wings outstretched, suggesting in a
beautiful and imaginative way the almost divine power which the
Chinese at this time believed the horse to possess.
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