Presentation of the horse, Tang dynasty (618-907), dated 666, Colours on clay plaster, Zhaoling Museum, Prov: Shaanxi. |
Unknown Masterpieces: Han Tradition to Tang Elegance |
Mythical animal, Stone, Eastern Han dynasty (25-220), 3rd century, Luoyang Ancient Art Museum.
Headless Buddha Ratnasambhava, Tang dynasty, 8th century, Marble, traces of polychrome and gilding, Beilin Museum, Prov: Shaanxi.
Dancer, Tang dynasty (618-907), 668, Painted earthenware, Chang'an Museum, Prov: Shaanxi. |
Palazzo Strozzi The Tang dynasty is considered the Golden Age of Chinese history: its art represents one of its cultural zeniths, comparable to the Florentine Renaissance. Both have their roots in the fortunate combination of great journeys and an openness to ideas from abroad. This exhibition introduces the visitor to the imperial courts in the three most important Chinese capital cities of the first millennium: Nanjing, the capital of the Southern Dynasties; Luoyang, first city of the Eastern Han and second of the Tang, when the main capital was Chang’an (today’s Xi’an), then the biggest city in the world with two million inhabitants. As a result of the synthesis between nomadic mobility and the great Chinese civilisation, Tang culture was refined and cosmopolitan. At that time China was fascinated with anything foreign and it manifested this attraction by importing goods from all around the world through the Silk Road and the maritime routes, thus putting the Tang empire at the centre of commercial and cultural exchanges from the Mediterranean to Japan. People from different countries, races, and religions influenced Chinese culture with their beliefs, practices and traditions. With regard to religions, besides Buddhism which flourished in an unprecedented way, Zoroastrism, Nestorianism, Manicheism and Islamism were all professed. The synthesis of new and foreign elements created a vigorous artistic language which is considered one of the most innovative and important in the history of China. Splendid mural paintings, spectacular stone statues, exquisite gold and silver objects, glittering jewels, pottery figurines and exotic glassware lead us to the discovery of this new expression. Following an ideal art-historical path, this exhibition continues the itinerary begun by China. Birth of an Empire (September 2006-February 2007), held in Rome at the Scuderie del Quirinale. That show presented the complex and splendid evolution of Chinese civilisation from the Zhou period (1045-256/221 BC) to the Qin (221-206 BC) and Western Han (206 BC–23 AD) dynasties. During those one thousand years, the first great empire was shaped and consolidated and it created an administrative system that lasted for the next twenty-one centuries. The Palazzo Strozzi exhibition examines the period from the Eastern Han (25-220 AD) through the Tang dynasty (618-907 AD), during which Chinese civilisation was radically transformed. In 220 the great Han empire fell under violent power struggles. During the following centuries (the Chinese equivalent of the Middle Ages), China was politically divided: the south was governed by Chinese dynasties, while the north was dominated by foreign regimes until 589, when the (northern) Sui Dynasty (581-618 AD) reunified the Chinese territory and laid the foundations for a great and renewed empire. This was inherited by the Tang dynasty (618-907 AD) which ushered in the ‘Golden Age’, during which China became the cultural centre of Eastern Asia and the echo of its splendour even reached the Mediterranean. The exhibition opens with some important works of art from the Eastern Han period (25-220 AD), including a spectacular guard of honour of bronze chariots and horses found in the tomb of General Zhang at Leitai in Gansu province, and a powerful fantastic stone creature which used to watch over the eternal sleep of a nobleman from Luoyang (Henan). A critical section is dedicated to the arrival of Buddhism in China. Initially seen as one of the many Daoist cults, Buddhism spread after the fall of the Han empire, deeply affecting its cultural values. The 27 magnificent sculptures in the exhibition (some more than 2 metres high, never having left China before) date from the end of the fifth to the ninth centuries coming from important sites, such as the Maijishan caves in Gansu province, the Longmen caves and Dahai temple in Henan province, and from Da Anguo monastery in Shaanxi; together they illustrate the development of Chinese Buddhist sculpture. The opulence of the Tang court features prominently in the exhibition. The finest gold and silver archaeological finds show renewed contacts with the West, especially Sasanid Persia. In this period, Tang goldsmiths attained unequalled levels of refinement, as shown by the treasures from the Dingmaoqiao hoard near Zhenjiang (Jiangsu province) and those in the crypt of the pagoda of Famen monastery in Shaanxi province. The same skills are evident in the pottery figurines created to accompany the dead on their last journey that have been found in Tang aristocratic tombs. Among these are figurines representing men from different parts of the world with typical clothes and hairdos, big noses, long beards, often accompanied by magnificent horses and impressive camels. These figures give us some indication of the sumptuous life of the nobility, characterised by a taste for the exotic and an enjoyment of the arts. Ladies are attractively dressed in foreign attire and with elaborate hairstyles, some riding a horse or dressed in men’s clothes, thus showing the freedom women enjoyed during that time. Religious tolerance is also illustrated in the image of a Zoroastrian fire ritual with two priests represented as half bird-half man, on the lintel of the tomb of An Jia, a Sogdian official in Tongchuan, near Chang’an. The exhibition culminates with four mural paintings and four paintings on stone from the Tang period. Some of these, only recently discovered, have never been shown in the West. They depict aspects of traditions in Chinese society at that time such as the importance of foreigners in politics, fashions, the extreme complexity of hairstyles as well as expressing the emotional language of Tang ink brush portrait painting. |
Chariots and mounted guards (10 items), Eastern Han dynasty, beginning of the 3rd century, Bronze, Gansu Provincial Museum. |
