Chinese culture incorporates all of the shared knowledge, expectations and beliefs of its people. It is a great Eastern civilization that was the first known and appreciated in Europe. The spoken language of China varies, but the written language is mostly uniform, permitting literary, philosophic and religious tradition and promoting broad cultural unity and flow of artistic ideas.
Painting
Brush in Chinese is "pi." Ink in Chinese is "mo." The types of brushstrokes and the names given to them by the Chinese are numerous. They make up the structure of the picture and are usually grouped according to subject: bamboo, trees, rocks and mountains. Chinese painting has a sense of poetry and realism as well. Painting flourished during the Three Kingdoms period. The most famous artist of the time was Ku K'ai-Chin. He painted on a horizontal scroll the heroism of Lady Feng, who saved the life of her emperor by placing herself between him and an attacking bear. Paintings of the Sung Dynasty are known for their development of the horizontal hand scroll. Some scrolls measured 50 feet or longer and were unrolled from right to left. The most important painters of the time were Su Tung-P'o, Li Kung-Lin and landscape artist Mi Fu.
Sculpture
When Shih Huang Ti became the first emperor of China and established totalitarian control over most of the country between 221 and 210 B.C., he made his reign significant by building the Great Wall. In 1974, the emperor's immense tomb was discovered in Shaanxi province. More than 6,000 life-size clay figures of soldiers were found, serving asimmortal imperial bodyguards. Buddhism was introduced to China by the first century, during the period of the Three Kingdoms. The earliest important Buddhist image, a gild-bronze statuette of Sakyamuni Buddha that was derived from an Indian prototype, was produced in China in A.D. 338. During this period, sculptors at Yunkank, near Tatung, were carving the famous Colossal Buddha from Cave XX.
Jade
The love of jade and the ritual use of jade are characteristic elements of Chinese culture. The Chinese believe in the magic power of jade, making jade pendants beneficial to the wearer. Beautiful examples of jade objects can be found in all periods of Chinese history: axes, rings, and the "pi" and "ts'umg," which in old times were used to represent heaven and earth. Jade objects also have some connection with fertility and burial rights.
Pottery
Chinese pottery culture arose about 2500 B.C. It was crude, unpainted ware with designs that resembled those of Neolithic Europe. The designs were symbolic based on the magic cultural symbols of spirals, triangles, squares, zigzags, human heads, snakes, dragons, rain, water and cowry shells. The same motifs were evident in both prehistoric and dynastic China. They showed strong cultural continuity. Sung artists produced superb ceramics with monochrome glazes: celadon (mat gray green) and ying-ch'ing (subtle pale blue). The Ming Dynasty, in the 14th century, provided a trend for white porcelain with underglaze decoration. Ming Dynasty designs were painted on "five color" wares decorated with enamels.
Architecture
Chinese architecture has not distinctively changed in style over the centuries. Many modern Chinese buildings closely resemble their prototypes from a thousand years ago. The essential elements of Chinese architecture are a rectangular hall, a pitched roof with projecting eaves, support by a bracketing system and wooden columns. Walls mostly act only as screens. Buddhism contributed a specific form to Chinese architecture--the pagoda, which to many has become a symbol of China. Pagoda towers were derived from Indian "stupa." Pagodas are four to eight stories high and form towers as high as 300 feet. Each story is marked by its own projecting eaves and curved lines.
Bronze
The earliest examples of Chinese bronze were axes, mirrors and vessels with animal-combat motifs. A superb example of bronze craft from the Han Dynasty is a figure of a flying horse from a tomb in Gansu province that was discovered in 1969. Art from the Shang Dynasty, in 12 B.C., was characterized by bronze vessels with zoomorphic motifs. The Chou Dynasty, in 1027 B.C., is famous for bronze. Chou bronze made up viral vessels and were explosive and dynamic in design. Late Chou bronze was produced to satisfy elaborate demands of feudal courts. They usually had narrative designs.
Chinese and European Art
There are important differences between Chinese and European approaches to aesthetic questions and works of art. European art came from hundreds of sculptors, architects, painters, engravers and goldsmiths, whereas Chinese pieces came from thousands of painters, numbering among them emperors, princes, ministers and generals. China also contained hundreds of calligraphers who were not only practitioners of fine writing but also were gifted artists. In the 20th century, modern Western art was moving eastward. Artists started moving away from realistic representation toward idea expression. Great artists such as Wassily Kandinsky and Andy Warhol were influenced by Chinese art and painting.
