Eric, since which dynasty have the Chinese been making those beautiful lanterns? Here's a few from the Chinese Garden gallery:
"The use of decorative lanterns to brighten and illuminate Chinese festivities is said to date back to the Han dynasty (206 B.C.B220 A.D.), while the tradition of stringing up lanterns on the 15th day of the first lunar month was supposedly born during the Sui dynasty (581B618). It was during the Tang dynasty (618-907) that common people began using lanterns to mark the end of the New Year's celebration--a practice that had previously been an Imperial prerogative."
From this site here: http://www.chinatownhi.com/lanterns.asp, it would seem to contradict the quote you posted above, Hellios, about the origins of the Chinese-style lantern during the Han Dynasty. Apparently, it went back a little farther than that, during the late Warring States Period, although back then it would have been out of other materials besides paper, since paper was an invention in China since the early 2nd century with the court eunuch known as Cai Lun.
"Originating as far back as 250 B.C., the basic Chinese lantern has remained unchanged in design. The sleeve or frame that surrounds the candle is assembled from pliable bamboo, sturdy redwood or inexpensive wire. To soften the harsh light of a naked flame, thin or oiled paper, gauze or silk fabric covers the frame to create the familiar flattering, soft glow. In contrast to the simplicity of the standard spherical lantern, the zouma deng lantern was designed during the Song dynasty (960-1279), an era of innovation that included developments in type printing, gunpowder and paper currency. The zouma deng resembles a miniature pavilion with upturned eaves. An inner wire shaft is fitted with paper vanes, and the heat current generated from the flame rotates the shaft, setting a paper cutout in a charming merry-go-round motion, hence the name, since zouma deng means "roundabout."
The lantern played an important role in military communications, particularly when the Chinese Empire was divided into three warring kingdoms. The Chinese historical tome Romance of the Three Kingdoms, set during the Han dynasty (206 B.C.A.D. 220), describes how the respected military strategist and war hero Zhuge Liang (nicknamed Kung Ming) made a special lantern designed to alert neighboring ally cities of approaching attack or danger. A strip of kerosene-soused cloth or paper was ignited and placed inside a lamp that floated upward into the night sky.
In times of peace, the size and elevation of lanterns hanging outside houses indicated social status in Chinese society. To show off wealth, Chinese elite hung lanterns made of silk velvet from second-floor balconies and verandas. Lanterns belonging to the rich were so large that they required several men with poles to hang them. At the onset of the Cultural Revolution, the lantern, like many other Chinese arts, was deemed ourgeois and banned for the next decade. But visitors today will find a voluminous array of once-forbidden lanterns located above Chairman Maos portrait on Tiananmen Tower."
The earliest surviving examples of Chinese paintings we have are from the Warring States Period (481-221 BC) and Han Dynasty (202 BC - 220 AD) painted on silk or tomb murals painted on rock, brick, and stone. However, the earliest of these paintings during the late Zhou period were rudimentary, 2 dimensional scenes of mythical creatures and people drawn in the same continual, stylized format, nothing like the people and creatures depicted in the same time period on the intricate 3 dimensional art of ancient Shang and Zhou Dynasty bronze-wares, jade carvings, and the enormous Terracotta Army assembled in life-like men and horses for the tomb of the First Qin Emperor (died in 210 BC). In the ancient Shang, Zhou, Qin, and Han Dynasties, the functions of art were often reserved for purposes of geomancy, funerary rights, representation of the mythological deities and ancestor spirits, in other words, mythological and religious in intent and practice. The First Qin Emperor truly believed that the 8,099 Terracotta men and horses he had thousands working to craft and labor on would serve to guard him in the afterlife.
Warring States painting on silk of a man riding a dragon, Chu State tomb, 5th-3rd century BC:
Western Han Dynasty (202 BC - 8 AD) Silk Banner found in the tomb at Mawangdui
An example of Han Dynasty murals:
Tomb murals of horse-riders on a hunt and outing, Wei Dynasty (220-265 AD)
Even after the papermaking process was innovated by Cai Lun of the Eastern Han Dynasty (2nd century), paper wasn't necessarily the material of choice for exquisite paintings (although printed materials from the 9th century onwards on paper would feature inked artwork), as silk scrolls remained the prevalent method for those to express themselves through art. During the Wei and Western Jin Dynasties, mural paintings and painted decorations on silk became gradually more complex, but the real revolution in Chinese art (along with the introduction of professional landscape art) came during the Northern and Southern Dynasties Period (317-581 AD). It was during the early 4th century that the once centrally unifying Western Jin state was threatened and then defeated by oncoming northern steppe nomads known as the Xiongnu, who sacked the capital at Luoyang and forced the Jin court to flee south to establish their control over the southern half of China, establishing the Eastern Jin Dynasty (317-420 AD) at Jiankang (modern-day Nanjing). While culture in the north became a hybrid Chinese/northern nomadic fusion (the military ranks even drawn up opon the standards of nomadic cavalry units), the southern dynasties saw their own cultural flourishing apart from the northerners. It was here at Jiankang (Nanjing) where the social norms and accepted practices/pasttimes of a proper Confucian literati were developed and implemented. The most important sophisticated pasttimes of an upright Confucian scholar or bureaucrat became established as:
1. Writing and reciting poetry 2. Playing the musical instrument of the guqin (ancient Chinese stringed-zither) 4. Writing through fancy calligraphy 3. Painting, whether it be landscape, portrait, etc.
Poetry became so emphasized in Chinese society during the Tang Dynasty, that it was actually made one of the required fields of study to master if one wanted to pass the rigid Civil Service and Imperial Exams in order to become a government official. However, for the purposes of this thread, I'll stick to painting. With a greater emphasis on painting came greater social expectations for one to achieve greater and more sophisticated artistic heights than their contemporaries, and especially their Han predecessors who were avid tomb mural and silken dress/banners/scroll painters. Arguably the greatest artistic painter during this time was the court official for the Eastern Jin known as Gu Kaizhi, who painted his first painting in Nanjing in 364 AD, at the age of 20. Gu Kaizhi was not only popular in his own time, but was revered by later artists who used him and his art as the prime example of matured Chinese art. Gu Kaizhi once wrote, "In figure paintings the clothes and the appearances were not very important. The eyes were the spirit and the decisive factor."
Landscape Artwork and Admonitions of the Instructress to the Court Ladies originally painted by the Eastern Jin Dynasty master of art, Gu Kaizhi (lived 344-406 AD)
Eric, you seem to be quite an expert on Chinese art. I want to ask you a question that maybe quite a few of us who know little about Chinese art would like to ask - Can you tell the difference between the different styles and different periods of, say, Chinese painting?
I came across the following article which raised (and then answered) the same question. If you have time, could you take a look at it and tell me what you think?
Wow, I actually learned quite a bit just from reading that. Thanks for the Serbian guy's treatise on Chinese art, flyingzone, it was pretty informative. As to telling the difference between different styles/time periods for Chinese paintings, it's easy to tell apart a Qing era painting from a Tang Dynasty painting (people's clothes from time era, arrangement of items in a painted scene, the stylized format, the choice of certain items to paint, richness in detail, etc.) and sometimes it is very hard to tell the difference (unless both are weathered and worn somehow at the same rate). Many Chinese painters made so many remakes of the masterpieces of earlier masters, it's hard for some to tell the difference between the two, unless you have the aid of an artistic professional at your side to guide you. I am not the latter, although I do know a bit about the art of Chinese painting.
i have seen the real Qing MIng festival on the river in Shanghai Muesum along with other hundreds paintings. It was a periodic tour exhibition held by the Palace muesum. The Qing MIng festival and a painting painted by a Song emperor impressed me a lot. Partly because it took me 3hours queuing for the 5 minutes to see them. The real painting is small than i ve expected, but really delicate. Pity is that i ve only got a glance at the painting the crowds after me pushing me out of the gallery.
Awesome, Qin Dynasty! I wish I could see it first-hand myself, although the half-hour-long wait for a 5 minute viewing would be somewhat of a downer. :( Still, a great piece of art.
"A Chinese ceramic bowl from the 18th century sold for $19.42 million US at an auction in Hong Kong on Tuesday, breaking the world record price for Qing Dynasty ceramics, Christie's auction house said.
The famille rose Guyuexuan bowl bears the seal of the Qianlong Emperor, who reigned from 1736 to 1795.
It is the most expensive work of art ever sold in an Asian auction, Christie's said."
"A Chinese ceramic bowl from the 18th century sold for $19.42 million US at an auction in Hong Kong on Tuesday, breaking the world record pricefor Qing Dynasty ceramics, Christie's auction house said.
The famille rose Guyuexuan bowl bears the seal of the Qianlong Emperor, who reigned from 1736 to 1795.
Itis the most expensive work of art ever sold in an Asian auction, Christie's said."
Holy crap man! 19 million dollars!? Besides the fact of this guy being able to sling money around like that, I wonder if this guy has actually seen other genuine porcelain items from the Qianlong era, as I've even posted some here. I'm sorry, but the enameling on that bowl, and the overall design, are of a lesser quality than a good amount of Qianlong-era porcelain wares I've seen. Period. It's really not that exquisite, to be honest...heck, the Charles Lang Freer gallery porcelain items blow that out of the water. If I was that guy, even with that kind of money, I wouldn't have paid more than $5-7 million for it. But no more, cuz it just wouldn't be worth it (unless the money was going to a charity or something nice like that, which is often the case with auctions like this). Is Christie's auction house a major charity provider?
There is an error in this remake piece that makes it easily distinguishable that this is not the original Zhang Zeduan's famous painting "Spring Festival (Qing Ming) on the River" depicting the Northern Song dynasty's capital city Bian Liang (present day Kai Feng city in Henan province). Can those of you who have seen the original painting point out what error is there from the remake piece?
"Landscape Artwork and Admonitions of the Instructress to the Court Ladies originally painted by the Eastern Jin Dynasty master of art, Gu Kaizhi (lived 344-406 AD)"
This painting "Admonitions of the Instructress to the Court Ladies" was always thought composed by Eastern Jin Dynasty's master of art, Gu Kaizhi. But the new scholar study challenges this traditional view, a documentary about this new discovery was shown on China's CCTV 10(educational channel) few years ago.
According to this discovery, the painting "Admonitions of the Instructress to the Court Ladies" was actually composed by Northern Wei dynasty during the reign of emperor Xiao Wen.
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