Page 52 - China, 5000 years : innovation and transformation in the arts

I.
At least since the seventh century CE, three major
artistic traditions have coexisted in the world: the
East Asian tradition centered in China, the Western
tradition centered in Europe (and, after the
eighteenth century, in the United States), and the
Islamic tradition. All three have long historical
roots, and these roots are neither unitary nor linear.
Their later evolutions have been shaped primarily
by the evolutions of their vastly different cultural
systems—the East Asian based on Confucianism, the
Western on the commingling of Classical thought
and Christianity, and the Islamic on the teachings
of Islam.
The definition of "culture" here is that used in
contemporary anthropological research, namely,
"Culture consists of patterns, explicit and implicit,
of and for behavior acquired and transmitted by
symbols, constituting the distinctive achievement of
human groups, including their embodiment in
artefacts. . . . Culture systems may, on the one hand, was sometimes close, it was always limited in time,
be considered as products of action, on the other as
conditioning elements of further action." 1 In short,
"culture" consists of those predominant concepts
that determine the rules of behavior of members of
society and form the "cultural phenomena" of their
groupings. From this perspective, it is the "culture"
of any country or people that truly gives shape to
its artistic expression.
Because for a long historical period artists were
considered mere craftsmen, their works expressed
not the maker's subjective aspirations but the
collective or individual values of society's dominant
groups, whence came their patrons. Subsequently
there emerged some artists who did not depend on
patronage for their livelihood, and whose works
therefore could express their own interests and
perceptions. Because these were generally members
of the upper classes, however, their works too
mostly reflect the consciousness of the social elites
to which they belonged. Not until the modern era
have art works come increasingly to express the
individual characters of their makers, and to show a
concomitant proliferation of styles. Within every
artistic tradition, this pattern in the history of art Classical civilization of Europe, including its Cretan
has caused the works of different periods to be
strongly stamped with hallmarks of their eras.
Societies everywhere follow essentially similar
processes of historical development, but at disparate
paces and with disparate cultural content. This
underlying similitude of developmental paths
produces considerable similarities among the art
works of different countries and peoples at the
same stage of social development; at the same time,
the overlying disparities in cultural characteristics
Amongmake for entirely different artistic traditions.
the three major world artistic traditions, two were
FIVE THOUSAND YEARS OF CHINESE CULTURE
based on religious concepts—Christianity and Islam.
Only in China and East Asia did a secular ethos and
system of secularly derived moral values-
Confucianism—come to constitute the foundation
of society. This created a distinct aesthetic, which, in
conjunction with differences in the conditions of
life, gave rise to an artistic tradition different from
the other two both in content and in forms of
expression.
At a time when Christianity and Islam were widely
accepted in Europe and the Middle East, Buddhism
had an enormous following in China. Why, then,
did Buddhist concepts not become a major basis of
Chinese culture (although they did dominate
certain cultures, such as the Tibetan)? The answer
must be that, for a fairly lengthy period,
Christianity and Islam were state religions in
Europe and the Middle East; government and
religion were integrated. In China, on the other
hand, although the embrace of Throne and creed
space, and degree. Additionally, Buddhism was never
supreme in the culture of the Han ethnic majority,
even during its apogee, from the Northern and
Southern Dynasties era through the Sui and Tang.
Furthermore, Chinese Buddhism absorbed many
Confucian moral and ethical concepts. In other
words, among the three major cultures, the Chinese
was by far the most secular.
It was in the Middle East that cultural systems
coalescing government with religion originated
some five thousand years ago. In ancient Egypt, for
instance, the Pharaoh was also the monarch, uniting
in his person state and creed. In Europe, by
contrast, almost till the end of the Classical age,
state and religion were mutually supportive but
structurally and functionally separate institutions.
Not till the fourth century CE did Rome adopt
Christianity as the official religion, a policy soon
followed by Rome's successor kingdoms in Europe
and continued (although not unchallenged) into the
era of the modern nation-states. In this regard, the
and Mycenean precursors, must be considered an
interlude between the cultures of Mesopotamia and
ancient Egypt and that of medieval Europe. As for
Islam, it has since its beginning been accepted as a
state religion in the Middle East.
The formation of the Chinese cultural tradition
proceeded along different lines. Since its beginnings
during the Xia, Shang, and Zhou eras, government
and religion were separate, except under King Xin
of the late Shang, who at one point assumed the
power to offer sacrifices. The separation of
government and religion simultaneously reflected
and promoted a strong sense of secularism in the
Chinese cultural tradition, but this secularism did