Chinese Art. Stephen W. Bushell
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barbican gates, barbican archways, sluice gates, sluice gate towers, enemy sighting towers, corner guard towers and moat. It had the most extensive defense system in Imperial China. The terre-plein was well and smoothely paved, and he is defended by a crenellated parapet. The outer faces of the walls are strengthened by square buttresses built out at intervals of 60 meters, and on the summits of these stand the guard houses for the troops on duty.
The massive 30-meter-high Dongbianmen Tower is a 568-year-old arrow castle dating from 1436. It is the largest and oldest corner tower along a city wall in China. With its 144 arrow holes helping to protect the city, it also looked over the link with the Grand Canal. It is located at the southeastern corner of the outer city walls. There was also a watchtower was built during the Qianlong era (1735–1796), with two levels of arrow windows, four windows per level on the northern side, and two windows per level each on the eastern and western sides.
Map of Peking, 1917.
The Gate of Supreme Harmony, 15th c.
Forbidden City, Peking.
Xu Yang, Bird’s eye View of the Capital, 1767.
Hanging scroll, colour on silk, 255 × 233.8 cm.
Palace Museum, Peking.
The Throne hall, 1420.
Imperial Palace (Forbidden City). Peking.
3. – Civil
Lying at the center of Peking, the Forbidden City was the imperial palace during the Ming and Qing dynasties. Rectangular in shape, it is the world’s largest palace complex and covers 74 hectares. Surrounded by a six meter deep moat and a ten meter high wall are 9,999 buildings (today 8,662 are still intact). Construction of the palace complex began in 1407 and was completed fourteen years later in 1420.
The Hall of Supreme Harmony is at the heart of the immense Forbidden City palace complex. It is the grandest and the most important building in the nation. The Hall of Supreme Harmony is also known as the “Throne Hall.” Covering a floor area of 2,377 square meters, the grand hall is the largest wooden structure in the world. No building in the empire was allowed to be higher than it during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, because of its symbol of imperial power. The hall is 35 meters high, 64 meters wide, and 37 meters long, respectively. There are a total of 72 pillars, in six rows, supporting the roof. The doors and windows are embossed with clouds and dragons. The Hall was used for grand ceremonies such as the Emperor’s enthronement ceremony and the Emperor’s wedding.
Since yellow is the symbolic colour of the royal family, it is the dominant color in the Forbidden City. Roofs are built with yellow glazed tiles; decorations in the palace are painted yellow; even the bricks on the ground are made yellow through a special process. However, there is one exception. Wenyuange, the royal library, has a black roof. The reason for this is that it was believed that black represented water, and could therefore extinguish fire. The Wenyuange was build to house 36,000 volumes.
Bird’s eye View of the Forbidden city, 15th c. Forbidden City, Peking.
The pavilion of Literacy Profundity (Wenyuange), 1420.
Imperial Palace (Forbidden City), Peking.
The Hall of the Classics, called Pi Yung Kung, was built after an ancient model by the emperor Ch’ien Lung in Peking, adjoining the national university called Kuo Tzu Chien. The emperor goes there in state on certain occasions to expound the classics, seated upon the large throne within the hall, which is backed by a screen fashioned in the form of the five sacred mountains. It is a lofty square building with a four-sided roof covered with tiles enamelled imperial yellow, and surmounted by a large gilded ball, encircled by a pillared verandah under a second projecting roof of yellow tiles. Each of the four sides consists of seven pairs of folding doors with tracery panels. It is surrounded by a circular moat with marble balustrades crossed by four bridges leading to the central doors. On the sides of the courtyard in which it stands are two long, cloistered buildings sheltering 189 upright stone steles covered with inscriptions over the front or back.
The inscriptions comprise the complete text of the thirteen “classics,” and were engraved by the emperor Ch’ien Lung, in emulation of the Han and Tang dynasties, both of which had the canonical books cut in stone at Si An Fu, the capital of China in their time. The text is divided on the face of the stone into pages of convenient size, so that rubbings may be taken on paper and bound up in the form of books. It was the custom, as early as the Han Dynasty, to take such impressions, a practice which may possibly have first suggested the idea of block printing.
The name of the lake K’un-ming Hu, near Si’an Fu, once the leading metropolis in the province of Shensi, comes down from the Han Dynasty, when Emperor Wu Ti had a fleet of war ships maneuvering to exercise his sailors for the conquest of Indochina China.
The marble bridge of seventeen arches in the picture is a remarkable example of the fine stone bridges for which the neighborhood of Peking has been celebrated since Marco Polo described the many arched bridge of Pulisanghin, with its marble parapets crowned with lions, which spans the river Hunho, and is still visible from the hills which form the background of the summer palace. The bridge pictured above, which was built in the twentieth year of Ch’ien Lung (1755 A. D.), leads from the cemented causeway to an island in the lake with an ancient temple dedicated to the dragon god and called Lung Shên Ssu, the name of which was changed by Ch’ien Lung to Kuang Jun Ssu, the “Temple of Broad Fertility,” because the Emperor, as a devout Buddhist, objected to the deification of the Naga Raja, the traditional enemy of the faith.
The Hall of Supreme Harmony, 1406.
Imperial Palace (Forbidden City), Peking.
Pi Yung Kung (Biyong), Imperial Hall of the Classic, 1784. Peking.
Seventeen arch bridge, 18th c.
Summer Palace, Peking.
4. – Funereal
The Terracotta Army is one of the most significant archeological excavations of the 20th century. The site, dating from 210 B. C., was discovered in 1974 by several local farmers near Xi’an, Shaanxi province. The Terracotta Army was buried with the first emperor that united China in 221 B. C., Ying Zheng (260–210 B. C.), who declared himself as Qin Shi Huangdi, meaning the first emperor. Their purpose was to help rule another empire with Shi Huangdi in the afterlife.
The terracotta figures vary in height (184–197cm) according to their role, the tallest being the Generals. Only about 1,000 soldiers have been excavated so far; archaeologists estimate that there are over 7,000 soldiers (infantry to generals), 130 chariots with horses, and 150 cavalry horses. The terracotta figures were manufactured both in workshops by government labourers and by local craftsmen. The head, arms, legs and torso of each figure were created separately and then assembled.
Then a fine clay slip was added, and details such as eyes, mouth, nose and details of dress were carved into the clay while it was still pliable. Additional pieces such as ears, beard and armor were modeled separately and attached, after which the whole figure was fired at a high temperature. [1, 2] The statues were vividly painted; and although most of that paint has worn away, traces of it may be seen on some of the statues.
The imperial tombs of the Northern Sung Dynasty (960–1127), the Sung Mausoleums, are in western Gongxian County, Henan Province. The stone statues guarding the gates are finely sculpted, demonstrating that Sung Dynasty stone sculptures had gradually discarded a pronounced mythical air and begun to display a sense of real life. These reflected the artistic creativity of Sung Dynasty laboring people and the unified system of stone sculpture of the Northern