5.  Producing the Qin Emperor’s Terracotta Army

 

Qin dynasty (221-206 BCE).

Legalism:   emphasize laws and promote development of a rigid authoritarian state; the fullest exposition of Legalist thought was written by Han Feizi 韓非子 (d. 233 BCE).

Objects

Concept :   production (definitions from the online OED)

            a. The action or an act of producing, making, or causing anything; generation or creation of something; the fact or condition of being produced.

            b. The action of bringing forward or out; the exhibiting or provision of something for consideration, inspection, or use; (Law) the                                                 presentation of a document or article before a court.

Texts

a)             When one writes the social history of art, it is easier to define what methods to avoid than propose a set of methods for systematic use, like a carpenter presenting his bag of tools, or a philosopher his premises.   So I begin by naming some taboos.   I am not interested in the notion of the work of art “reflecting” some ideologies, social relations, or history.   Equally I do not want to talk about history as “background” to the work of art—as something which is essentially absent from the work of art and its production, but which occasionally puts in an appearance. (TJ Clark, 15).

b)             Iconology is… “a method of interpretation that arises from synthesis rather than analysis…” It deals with “images, stories and allegories…it presupposes much more than that familiarity with objects and events which we acquire by practical experience.   It presupposes a familiarity with specific themes or concepts as transmitted through literary sources, whether acquired by purposeful reading or by oral tradition.” (Panofsky, pp. 32-5)

c)             Sculpture art as a superstructure ideology must be a reflection of the age in which it lives.   In the Qin period the new emerging landlord class had ascended the stage of history… People of such low and humble position are actually the creators of the Qin terra cotta figures of warriors in the pits. ( Terra-cotta Warriors and Horses , 4).

d)             …at the present time, if a ruler can get rid of private crookedness and promote the public law, his people will become secure and his state will become well ordered.   If he can expel private conduct and enforce the public law, his troops will grow strong while his enemies grow weak.   Therefore, if when examining gains and losses there is a system of laws and standards that can be applied to the claims and actions of the assembled ministers, the ruler will not be deceived by trickery and falsehood.   If when examining gains and losses there is a scale of weights and balances that can be used to measure the importance of distant affairs, the ruler will not be deceived by the heaviness or lightness of the parties of the world (Han Feizi, trans. Joel Sahleen, 302).

e)             When the First Emperor had just come to the throne excavations and building work had taken place at Mount Li, but when he unified all under heaven, convicts to the number of more than 700,000 were sent there from all over the empire.   They dug through three streams and poured down molten bronze to make the outer coffin; and replicas of palaces, pavilions, all the various officials, and wonderful vessels, and other rare objects were brought up to the tomb, which was then filled with them.   Craftsmen were ordered to make crossbows and arrows which would operate automatically, so that anyone who approached what had been excavated was immediately shot.   Quicksilver [mercury] was used to represent the various waterways, the Yellow and Yangzi rivers, and the great sea, being made to flow by some mechanism to flow into each other, and above were arranged the heavenly constellations, and below was the layout of the land.   Candles were made of whale fat, for it was reckoned that it would be a long time before they were extinguished. (Sima Qian, trans. Dawson, 82-83)

Bibliography

Ciarla, Roberto, ed.   The Eternal Army:   The Terracotta Soldiers of the First Emperor .   Turin:   White Star, 2005.

Clark, TJ.   Image of the People:   Gustave Courbet and the 1848 Revolution .   London:   Thames and Hudson, 1973.

Erickson, Britta.   “Cai Guoqiang Takes the Rent Collection Courtyard from Cultural Revolution Model Sculpture to Winner of the 48 th Venice Biennale International Award.” chinese-art.com 2, no. 4 (1999).

“Han Feizi.”   Readings in classical Chinese philosophy .   Eds. P. Ivanhoe & B. van Norden, 295-344.   New York: Seven Bridges Press, 2001.

Hung, Wu.   “On tomb figurines:   The beginning of a visual tradition.”   In Body and face in Chinese visual culture .   Eds. Wu Hung and Katherine R Tsiang, 13-47.   Cambridge:   Harvard University Press, 2005.  

Ledderose, Lothar.   Ten Thousand Things .   Princeton:   Princeton University Press, 2000.

Panofsky, Erwin.   Meaning in the Visual Arts:   Papers in and on Art History .   Garden City, NY:   Doubleday Anchor Books, 1955.

Sima Qian.   The First Emperor: Selections from the Historical Records . Trans. Raymond Dawson.   Oxford and New York:   Oxford University Press, 2007.

Smith, Terry.   “Production.”   In Critical Terms for Art History .   2d ed.   Eds. Robert Nelson and Richard Schiff, 361-81.   Chicago:   University of Chicago Press, 1996.

Terra Cotta Warriors .   Beijing:   People's China Publishing House, 1998.

Terra-cotta Warriors and Horses of the Tomb of Qin Shi Huang .   Bejing:   Cultural Relics Publishing House, 1983.