IMAGES OF POWER: CHINESE YUAN and MING DYNASTIES: FOCUS (Chinese Decorative Arts and the ) ONLINE ASSIGNMENT: https://www.khanacademy.org/huma nities/art-asia/imperial-china/yuan- dynasty/v/david-vases

ONLINE ASSIGNMENT: https://www.khanacademy.org/huma nities/art-asia/imperial-china/yuan- dynasty/a/chinese-porcelain- production-and-export

TITLE or DESIGNATION: The David Vases

CULTURE or ART HISTORICAL PERIOD: Chinese

DATE: 1351 C.E.

MEDIUM: white porcelain with cobalt-blue underglaze ONLINE ASSIGNMENT: https://www.khanacademy.org/ partner-content/asian-art- museum/aam- China/v/forbidden-city

ONLINE ASSIGNMENT: http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/43 9

TITLE or DESIGNATION: Forbidden City

CULTURE or ART HISTORICAL PERIOD: Chinese

DATE: 15th century C.E. and later

LOCATION: , China

TITLE or DESIGNATION: Captures General De

Artist: Shang Xi

CULTURE or ART HISTORICAL PERIOD: Mughal Dynasty

DATE: c. 1430 C.E.

MEDIUM: hanging scroll, ink and colors on silk IMAGES OF POWER: CHINESE YUAN and MING DYNASTIES: SELECTED TEXT (Chinese Decorative Arts and the Forbidden City) The emperors of the Yuan dynasty were , descendants of Ghenghis Khan (1162-1227), the “Universal Leader” as his name translates. Ghenghis had conquered part of northern China in 1215, having already united the various nomadic tribes of the steppe land. He divided his empire into four kingdoms, each ruled and expanded by a son and his wife.

Ghenghis' grandson, Kublai Khan (reigned 1260-94), was ruler of the eastern Great Khanate. He completed the conquest of China by defeating the Southern Song in 1279. He ruled as emperor, giving his dynasty a , Yuan, meaning “origin”. He moved the capital to Dadu (now Beijing), shifting the central focus of the empire away from Central Portrait of Kublai Khan Asia.

Under the Mongols, the élite was formed by military officers, rather than the scholar-officials of previous dynasties. Though the bureaucracy was still necessary for administering the country, many scholar-officials retired, rather than serve a foreign regime. These yi-min, or “leftover ones”, dedicated themselves to painting and other literary pursuits. Generally, the Mongol emperors and bureaucrats were not great patrons of the traditional Chinese arts, although there are a few exceptions. Craftsmen were free to develop and exploit new influences, many dictated by the demands of trade. This is especially apparent in ceramics production, the most important example of which is blue-and-white porcelain.

Because it was foreign-ruled, the Yuan dynasty was traditionally considered to have been all detrimental, contributing nothing new or good to Chinese culture. In the past few decades, this thinking has undergone a change, resulting in a more objective appreciation of the Mongol period. The David Vases, 1351, white porcelain with cobalt-blue underglaze

They were made for the altar of a Daoist temple and their importance lies in the dated inscriptions on one side of their necks, above the bands of dragons. The long dedication is the earliest known on Chinese blue- and-white wares.

The dedication records that in 1351 a man named Zhang Wenjin from Yushan county presented these two vases and an incense burner (the whereabouts of which is unknown), to a Daoist temple in Xingyuan (modern day Wuyuan county). Yushan county is in northeast Jiangxi, which lies 120 km to the southeast of Jingdezhen, where these vases were made. This inscription demonstrates that blue-and-white porcelain production was already well-established at Jingdezhen by 1351. Originally the vases, modeled after bronzes, had porcelain rings attached through the elephant head shaped handles. Porcelain was first produced in China around 600.

The skillful transformation of ordinary clay into beautiful objects has captivated the imagination of people throughout history and across the globe. Chinese ceramics, by far the most advanced in the world, were made for the imperial court, the domestic market, or for export.

These vases were owned by Sir Percival David (1892–1964), who built the most important private collection of Chinese ceramics in the world. For many decades these vases were the only pieces of blue-and-white porcelain that could be definitely dated to the Yuan period. They were obviously not made for export or for a non-Chinese patron. Pieces for export are not so meticulously painted.

The David Vases show various original Chinese motifs on the surface, which is divided into different areas by thin lines running round their bodies. If we study the vases from the bottom upward, the areas divide into a first zone showing good luck symbols, with a band of peonies running round the foot above it.

The transitional area between the foot and the body shows stylized waves, and the main decorative area is adorned by a scaly dragon among the waves.

The shoulder bears another band of stylized flowers and tendrils (of the lotus) and the lower part of the neck has a phoenix among ornamental clouds, while the upper part bears ornamentation of lanceolate leaves (banana leaves) interrupted only by the inscription. The handles are worked in the form of realistic elephant heads. Finally, there is a band of leafy tendrils and chrysanthemums around the mouth, which thus shows three of the four flowers symbolizing the seasons. Forbidden City, Beijing, China, Ming Dynasty, 15th century and later Portrait of Yongle, the third Ming emperor

The first Ming (a word that means “brilliant”) emperor, Hongwu (1368- 99), was a man of the people and won the throne by force of arms against a hated foreign oppressor. A return to ancient national traditions was thus the order of the day. The civil service was restored with an even less flexible organization than before.

Classical Chinese scholarship was revived and in 1403 the third Ming emperor, Yongle, initiated the compilation of all knowledge in an 11,095-voume encyclopedia. Respect for tradition was, however, tempered by a growing taste for ostentation. When Yongle moved his capital from to Beijing in 1417, he had his palace laid out according to ritual, which prescribed that the “Son of Heaven” should rule from three courts. Raised on the site of Kubilai’s palace and using some of the old foundations, it was also designed to outshine the splendor of buildings that had thought “so vast, so rich and so beautiful that no man on earth could design anything superior.”

A 15-mile wall surrounded the axially planned courts dominated by the three great halls of state, which were later rebuilt and refurbished but always in the same sacrosanct manner, with wooden columns and beams and wide-spreading roofs of shimmering glazed yellow tiles- a color reserved for imperial buildings. Top and bottom left: (outer gate) (1) Below: (5)

The outer gate (called the Meridian Gate, built in 1420, restored in 1647 and 1801) gives access to the first courtyard, crossed by the bow-shaped “Golden Water River”. A still larger courtyard is reached through the “Gate of Supreme Harmony” beyond. As Zhou ritual appointed the hour of dawn for the emperor’s audiences, it was here that those who were to be received knelt and kowtowed in the gray twilight when the buildings must have looked their most dauntingly impressive. In the Ming Dynasty (1368 -1644), the Gate of Supreme Harmony was called “Fengtian Men” where the emperor held court to handle state affairs in the early morning.

It was here that the emperor met daily with officials and made decisions about state affairs. In the corridor on either side of the courtyard in front of Fengtian Gate were offices where two records were compiled: the daily court record, which was composed of notes about the emperor’s daily activities, and the veritable record, which documented more major affairs such as imperial decrees and rules and regulations of the court.

South of the Fengtian Gate was Wumen, Meridian Gate, the main entrance to the Forbidden City, where high-ranking civil and military officials gathered to wait for imperial audiences, where prisoners of war were presented, and where other triumphal ceremonies were conducted. Top Left: Middle Left: Bottom Left: Hall of the Preservation of Harmony

The three main halls are elevated above it on a triple tiered white marble platform. The “Hall of Supreme Harmony”, the only one that can be seen from the level of the courtyard, is about 200 feet wide and 100 feet deep, with the imperial throne on a high dais against its back wall. It was built in 1669 following an earlier design.

The other two buildings on the platform date from the Ming period: the square “Hall of Central Harmony”, where the emperor performed such ancient rituals as that of inspecting seed before the spring sowing, and the “Hall of the Preservation of Harmony”, where the final part of the highest civil service examination was held. The Three Great Halls, Fengtian, Huagai, and Jinshen – better known by their Qing-period names of Taihe, Zhonghe, and Baohe – are elevated on a triple-layer marble platform shaped like a capital I.

The center hall is the pinnacle of the north-south line of imperial architecture in Beijing.

East and in front of the Three Great Halls (to their left) was Wenhua Hall, and to the their right, Wuying Hall. Detatched in their own courtyards, these were where the emperor could reside upon retirement from court life.

Wenhua Hall, which contained a portrait of Confucius, was also a place for study and lectures. Wuying Hall was where officials and ladies of rank came to offer congratulations to the empress on her birthday. Right: Gate of Heavenly Purity as seen from The Hall of Preserving Harmony

A third courtyard separates the platform from the rest of the Forbidden City which was accessible only to its permanent residents, with the emperor’s private palace in the center, that of the empress behind, and on either side houses for windows and secondary wives in courtyards leading off long, straight streets.

Here the rigidity of the plan and the uniformity of the buildings, differing from one another only in size, were relieved, however, by small gardens and a profusion of plants in porcelain pots. The Imperial Palace was the heart of an empire which, in Chinese eyes, spread over the entire world-foreign ambassadors were received there only as tribute bearers from vassals until well into the nineteenth century. The main buildings lie on the south-north axis of the celestial meridian which determined the whole lay-out. Thus the emperor, who ruled by the mandate of heaven, looked from his throne in the ‘Hall of Supreme Harmony’ south and down on the world of people as from the pole star. And the rituals he performed were intended to ensure harmony on earth in tune with the harmony of the cosmos. Although the emperor held court daily at the Fengtian Gate (Gate of Supreme Harmony), Fengtian Hall (later Taihedian, the Hall of Supreme Harmony) was used only for grand ceremonies such as those on New Year’s Day, the winter solstice, the emperor’s birthday, and state banquets. Huagui and Jinshen halls (later the Hall of Central Harmony and the Hall of Preserving Harmony) were utilized only for audiences with officials and banquets for the princes, and as places for changing imperial robes. Southeast and southwest of the Three Great Halls, outside the Forbidden City but inside the imperial city, were the ancestral temple (taimiao) and the twin altars of soil and grain. Two of the rites that took place in these areas had roots in the inviolability of the sacred hereditary imperial authority: the recognition of imperial heredity by worship of the dynastic founder and his own ancestors at the temple, and the placement of the altars of five colors of earth – azure in the east, vermillion in the south, white in the west, black in the north, and yellow in the center (each sent from a different prefecture to symbolize the unity of the empire). Although cosmic symbolism had been a feature of palatial architecture from a very early date and in many different parts of the world, notably in Meso- and South America, nowhere was it more strictly observed than in China or on a grander scale.

The vast 4 square-mile precinct known as the , laid out in the Ming period, proceeds from an open- air temple on a mound, where the emperor sacrificed to and communicated with the heavens, to the Imperial Heavenly Vault and, more than 650 yards to the north, the much larger triple-roofed “Hall of Annual Prayers” (rebuilt after 1889), each one built on a circular plan of celestial significance. Vast underground palaces excavated as tombs for the Ming emperors some 30 miles to the north of Beijing have similarly symmetrical plans and were hardly less sumptuous. Their several rooms were faced with stone and vaulted, unlike the temples at ground level above them which are of normal Chinese timber construction with yellow glazed roof- tiles similar to the halls of the Imperial Palace.

They are approached along a “spirit road” flanked by large statues of men and monsters and of life-size camels and elephants carved with a bold realism recalling sculpture. But a memorial pillar by one of the gates with a delicately cut relief of a dragon materialized out of a tight pattern of clouds is, perhaps, more typical of Ming taste. One important task of feng shui in the past was selecting auspicious sites for imperial tombs. These were traditionally set in a landscape of hills and winding paths, protected from harmful spiritual forces by a hill to the rear and a winding waterway crossed by arched bridges in front. Feng shui was also called on to find and enhance sites for homes, towns, and, especially, imperial cities. The Forbidden City, for example, is “protected” by a hill outside the north wall and a bow-shaped watercourse just inside the entrance. Inside the walls of the Forbidden City are grand avenues, broad courtyards, government offices, mansions of princes and dignitaries, artificial lakes, lush gardens, luscious temples, theaters, a library, and a printing house.

This ceremonial arrangement reflects an adherence to ancient Confucian principles of correctness and to the Chinese taste for self-enclosure. Buildings are lined up along the traditional north-south axis and their relative sizes and functions determined by the rigors of Chinese court procedure, a strict protocol based on rank, age, and gender. During the Ming Era, for instance, imperial legislation prescribed nine rooms for the emperor, seven for a prince, five for a court official, and three for an ordinary citizen. Most of the buildings of the Forbidden City are no more than a single story high, their walls serving only as screens that divide interior space.

What the Chinese sacrificed in monumentality, however, they recovered in ornamental splendor and in the creation of an architecture that sought harmony with (rather than dominance over) nature. Chinese architects deliberately preserved such traditional features as the rectangular hall with fully exposed wooden rafters and the pitched roof with projecting eaves and glazed yellow tiles- the latter symbolic of the mantle of heaven.

Bronze lions and gilded dragons (symbols of royal power) guard the great hall and entrances.

A painting of a Ming emperor hunting, thought to be either the Hongzhi or Zhengde emperors

Like their Yuan predecessors, the Ming emperors had no formal academy structure for painters. Several of them were themselves accomplished painters, however, and work survives which claims to be from the hands of the rulers of the Xuande (1425-36), Hongzhi (1488-1505), and Zhengde (1506-21). Shang Xi. Guan Yu Captures an Enemy General Pang De, c. 1430 C.E., hanging scroll, ink and colors on silk

In addition, and from as early as the Xuande reign, they employed artists at court. These men were often given nominal posts in the imperial background, as was the case with Shang Xi (active early 15th century), who was responsible for the huge hanging scroll, once perhaps a screen panel, entitled Guan Yu Captures an Enemy General. The theme is historical, and taken from the confused warfare of the third century CE, the “” period which in the Yuan and Ming provided the material for one of China’s first great prose novels, the “Romance of the Three Kingdoms.”

The way Shang Xi has painted the figures, particularly the contrast between the straining muscles of the prisoner and the impassive general in his magnificent armor, is close to that used in religious murals of the Yuan and early Ming, and has absorbed some of the stylistic features introduced to the Beijing region by Tibetan artists under the Mongols. Guan Yu was a famed general of the Wei dynasty (220-280) and a fictional hero in the novel. Shang’s painting depicts the historical valor, being presented with the captured enemy Pang De. In the painting, Shang used color to focus attention on Guan and his attendants, who stand out sharply from the ink landscape. He also contrasted the victors’ armor and bright garments with the vulnerability of the captive, who has been stripped almost naked, further heightening his humiliation. IMAGES OF POWER: CHINESE YUAN and MING DYNASTIES: ACTIVITIES and REVIEW (Chinese Decorative Arts and the Forbidden City)