ARTHIST115 Chap.7 Tang Court Art and Landscape
Tang Court Art and Landscape
The first Week 4 lecture frames Chinese art through four contexts: dynasties, the Silk Roads, religious and philosophical traditions, and court life. It starts with Qin Shihuangdi's unification and his terracotta army of 246 to 208 BCE, life-sized soldiers individualised for naturalism and buried to protect him in the afterlife.
The Silk Roads, flourishing from about 200 to 900 CE, carried goods, ideas and religion, and Tang tomb figures in sancai glaze record Sogdian traders and Central Asian musicians. At court, meirenhua painting idealised women, while landscape developed in two styles, blue-green colour and monochrome ink associated with Wang Wei.
Landscape, the lecture argues, became a subject in its own right in China long before the West, shaped by Confucian and Daoist ideas of harmony. Buddhism adds a political dimension: the colossal Vairocana at Longmen, completed in 675, mirrored a supreme emperor's authority.
Auckland Museum holds Tang tomb figures from the collector Humphreys-Davies, including a horse and a figure of the consort Yang Guifei, so this chapter connects to works students can see in the city. Identify them as precisely as you would any lecture image.
What this chapter covers
- 01
Qin unification and the terracotta army
- 02
The Silk Roads as exchange of goods and ideas
- 03
Sancai tomb figures and Sogdian traders
- 04
Meirenhua court painting of ideal women
- 05
Blue-green and monochrome ink landscape
- 06
Confucianism, Daoism and the meaning of landscape
- 07
Longmen, Vairocana and Empress Wu
Worked example · free
Explain why the terracotta army expresses imperial power
- 1Identify: the terracotta warriors of Emperor Qin Shihuangdi, made between 246 and 208 BCE and excavated in 1974.
- 1Analyse form: thousands of life-sized figures grouped into military categories such as archers and infantry.
- 1Analyse naturalism: each figure is individualised, which creates an extraordinary sense of a real army.
- 1Conclude: the army shows reliance on military power to hold control, carried with the emperor into the afterlife.
Key terms
- Sancai
- The three-colour glaze of Tang dynasty ceramics, used on tomb figures.
- Meirenhua
- Tang court painting of beautiful women, a popular genre showing idealised figures at leisure.
- Handscroll
- A long horizontal painting on silk or paper viewed section by section, such as Zhou Fang's court scene.
- Silk Roads
- A network of trade routes connecting people across Asia, flourishing from about 200 to 900 CE.
- Vairocana
- The primordial Buddha presiding over all Buddhas, carved colossally at Longmen in 675.
Tang Court Art and Landscape FAQ
What are the two styles of Tang landscape painting?
The lecture names blue-green landscape, developed by court painters, and monochrome ink, associated with the poet and painter Wang Wei, who added textured strokes and ink washes. The two became more distinct in the Song dynasty, when monumental landscapes such as Wang Ximeng's 11.9-metre scroll of 1113 were painted.
Why is the Silk Road called romanticised in the lecture?
The name, given by a German traveller in 1877, conjures caravans of camels carrying exotic goods. The lecture quotes the art historian Eiren Shea to point out that the reality was more complex and more ordinary: a network of exchanges that moved ideas and religion as well as textiles and trade goods.
How does the Longmen Vairocana connect religion and politics?
It was part of a Buddhist complex commissioned by Emperor Gaozong and the future Empress Wu and was completed in 675. Vairocana presides over all Buddhas of the infinite universes, a supreme deity whose image resonated with a supreme emperor, so the commission mirrored a political agenda.
What is meirenhua in Tang painting?
Meirenhua, painting of beautiful women, was a popular Tang court genre. The lecture lists its ideal: women at idle, carefree activities, with full bodies and round faces, delicate contrapposto poses, and long loose gowns with gauzes, scarves and flowers suggesting fleeting youth. Zhou Fang's Ladies Wearing Flowers in Their Hair is the lecture's example.
Exam move
Draw the chapter's dynasty timeline from memory and place five works on it, from the terracotta army to Wang Ximeng's scroll. For each, write format, medium, date and the context it serves. Then practise a ninety-second spoken explanation of why landscape mattered in China, using balance, philosophy and the emperor's place in nature, and turn it into a paragraph.
Add the sizes of the three handscrolls to your cards; the comparison of scale is quick to recall and easy to use.
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