Art Carving Essence (1)

Author: Tianjin People's Fine Arts Publishing House
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-07-01
Features: Chinese sculpture is an ancient yet young art. It is called ancient because when many regions in the world were still in a primitive state, China had already produced great sculptural art like the Terracotta Army of Emperor Qin Shi Huang. It is called young because Chinese cultural theory has always been in the hands of scholars, who regarded poetry, calligraphy, and painting as the legitimate arts, while sculpture was considered the work of craftsmen. China has never had a history of sculpture until the 1980s when Chinese theorists finally wrote the first comprehensive history of Chinese sculpture. Due to the lack of records in historical texts, it was only when several farmers in Shaanxi discovered the Terracotta Army that China and the world were greatly astonished. What was even more surprising was that the discovery of the Terracotta Army unraveled many historical mysteries of the unification of China under Qin, revealing the advantages of the Qin army in defeating the Xiongnu and other feudal states, the incentive mechanisms of the Qin army, and the organization of the Qin military. What was even more astonishing was that as early as the Qin Dynasty, China's arms industry had already begun large-scale, standardized production in different regions, with its metallurgical technology reaching a level of extremely precise standardization. The discovery of the Terracotta Army rewrote the history of Chinese art.