Wu Hung

Art in a Ritual Context: Rethinking Mawangdui

This paper reexamines the famous painting from Mawangdui Tomb number 1. Instead of approaching it as an independent “work” and matching its images with fragmentary textual references, I explore its relationship with other buried objects, the tombs structure and symbolism, and the ritual process during which the tomb was constructed. Based on ancient ritual canons, I reject the popular opinion that the painting served to summon the departed soul or to guide the soul to Heaven. Rather, the painting formed part of the jiu -group (“the body in its long home”) at the center of the burial, and enclosed by the guan -coffins decorated with images of protection and immortality, and again by the guo -casket, a replica of the deceaseds household ( zhai ). The paintings meaning and function must be comprehended within this architectural-ritual context. Moreover, neither the painting nor the whole tomb represents a coherent conception of the afterlife. This feature separates this tomb from those constructed earlier and later, and represents a transitional period in the history of early Chinese art and religion.

From Temple to Tomb: Ancient Chinese Art and Religion in Transition

By exploring the shift of ancestral worship centers in ancient China and its impact on art, the author argues that the genealogical/political structure of the Three Dynasties found its religious form in temple worship; however, following the decline of this system during the Eastern Zhou and the Qin, the tomb of an individual increased in importance. This process culminated during the Eastern Han: Problems in dynastic succession forced the Eastern Han rulers to abandon temple ceremonies and transfer them to graveyards. But this new system was again renounced by the following Wei dynasty, and many funerary structures were destroyed in an “iconoclastic” movement. The author contends that this complex development in religion strongly influenced and even governed the course of ancient Chinese art: Corresponding to the shift in religious center, the tomb assumed new symbolic imagery, and pictorial funerary art replaced ritual vessels to become the dominant artistic genre of early imperial China.

What is Bianxiang? On the Relationship between Dunhuang Art and Dunhuang Literature

Relation entre « bianxiang », representation picturale de « bian », « transformations miraculeuses, et « bianwen », representation litteraire, deux aspects des manuscrits de Dunhuang

The Art and Architecture of the Warring States Period

The Warring States period was an era of magnificent artistic creation and renewal in Chinese history. By the end of the Spring and Autumn period, changes within traditional ritual art and architecture had reached a critical point. Many new artistic and architectural forms, styles, and genres appeared during the following centuries and redefined the whole visual vista. In architecture, the city was reshaped and its internal structure reconfigured. Tall platforms and terrace pavilions won great favor from political patrons, replacing the deep, enclosed compound of a traditional temple or palace to determine the center of a city or palace town. With their monumental appearance and dazzling ornamentation, these architectural forms supplied powerful visual symbols much needed by the new elite. In art also, the reaction against ritual bronzes – the dominant artistic genre during the Shang and Western Zhou – continued. Although vessels and other equipment made for ceremonial usage never disappeared, the ritual occasions that they served had gone through fundamental transformations, becoming increasingly mundane. The commemorative inscription declined further. Ornate interlacing patterns or depictions of human events transformed a bronze vessel into a carrier of geometric decoration or pictorial representation. Monochrome vessels had gone out of fashion; lacquers and inlaid objects, both reflecting a fascination with fluent imagery and coloristic effects, enjoyed great popularity. Beautifully decorated mirrors, belt hooks, and other types of personal belongings became major showpieces. Lamps, screens, tables, and other objects of daily use were created as serious works of art; combining expensive materials, exquisite work manship, and exotic images, these objects best documented the desire for material possession and the taste for extravagance.

The Hong Kong Clock—Public Time-Telling and Political Time/Space

hen I first saw the Hong Kong Clock in Tiananmen Square in 1994, W or Xiunggung zhong as people call it in Beijing, it displayed a bright digital number of 1055 -the days remaining until the resumption of sovereignty over Hong Kong on 1 July 1997. When I returned to the Clock in 1996, the number had changed to 298, then 297, 296 . . . (fig. 1). And my response to it had also changed from ridicule to a tightening sense of expectation: the Clockin fact a giant timer-seemed to tick louder and louder. Another difference in 1996 was more “clock-watchers,” mostly in small groups and all Chinese. Judging from clothing and dialect, some of them probably came from Hong Kong or Macao; others were mainlanders traveling to the capital from the provinces. Many visitors posed in front of the Clock to have their pictures taken (fig. 2), some grim-faced, others laughing and joking. A young man said to his female companion in a heavy Shandong accent: “Yinian hou zanmen yeneng qu Xianggang warwar le (A year from now we can also go to Hong Kong to have fun).” I looked afound and wondered what brought other people here: they seemed to have little in common in terms of origin, culture, profession, or even citizenship. But at that moment they had all linked themselves to a single measure of (political) time and space, since all of them had come to Tiananmen Square to see the Clock, and the Clock would show the same number in every snapshot taken that day.

Television in Contemporary Chinese Art

Established in 1958 at the onset of the Great Leap Forward, Beijing Television—the first TV network in China—realized its mandate by demonstrating the country’s determination to transform itself into a modern society despite the embargo of the West.1 Only fifty black-and-white monitors—the total number of TV sets in the capital—received the inaugural broadcast on International Labor Day, but the People’s Daily proudly announced that China had made another technological breakthrough. More TV stations appeared during the following years in major cities like Shanghai, Tianjin, and Guangzhou, but the quantity of television sets remained small: even eight years later, when Mao Zedong started the Cultural Revolution in 1966, the whole country had fewer than 12,000 televisions, mainly belonging to government institutions, factories, schools, and neighborhood committees.2 Such collective ownership of television sets remained basically unchanged during the ten years of the Cultural Revolution, but great efforts were made to capitalize on the media’s potential in political education and mass entertainment, creating a vast visual culture based on numerous communal TV viewing spaces throughout the country.3 This visual culture sharply declined after the Cultural Revolution, but has never entirely disappeared: even though today’s TV audiences in China are