Ritual and Religious Objects in Chinese art

Jolanta Cyrek

Chinese religion:

• system of beliefs that is characterised by lack of unification and lack of organisation

• result of interaction of different religious and philosophical traditions that were influential in China

• constructed essentially upon four main traditions:– Chinese folk

religion – Confucianism– Taoism – Buddhism

Traditional rituals and practices in China

Religious-political rituals:

• Ancestors veneration

• Prayer

• Divination, prophecy and astrology

• Longevity practices

• Feng Shui

• Worship of Heavenly Bodies and worship of Earth

Secular rituals:

•Meeting rituals

•Military rituals

• Birth rituals

•Coming-of-age rituals

•Banquet rituals

Terracotta Army: a burial for the emperor.

• Found buried about a half mile from the tomb of the First Emperor of Qin near Xi’an (Shaanxi province)

• Life-sized army of around 10,000 figures made of moulded, interchangeable parts but hand finished (no two are identical)

• Equipped with real weapons and chariots

• Symbol of the military power of the emperor but also his concern with afterlife

Shang bronze vessels(c.1600-1050 BC)

• Used in sacrificial rituals as containers for food or drink,

• Consists of animal and human imagery

• Human images usually associated with the images of animals

• Some images readily suggest possible meanings (cicadas-rebirth), other are assumed to symbolise something important in Shang religious and political cosmology

Taotie – highly stylised design that allude to animals but do not represent them directly (theories of what it represents: monster, dragons, ritual mask, totemism, shamanism or animal sacrifice).

Silk painting found draped over the coffin of Lady Dai (c.168 BC).

Bronze ‘money tree’ from Guanghan in Sichuan province, Easter Han dynasty 2nd century.

Buddhist art in ChinaMaitreya altarpiece dated 524

Mandala of Vajradakini, Tibet, Ngor Monastery, 15th century

Buddha statues, Mogao Caves, Dunhuang, Gansu Province, 9th-12th century

Summary:

• Ritual and religious objects in China excavated from tombs provide not only a source of information on Chinese religious practices but also a glimpse into the lives of ancient Chinese, as these items supposed to provide the dead with lives as comfortable as they once led on Earth,

• They are characterised by rich and elaborate execution, because their purpose was to establish a good relationship between the spirits of deceases and their descendants (ancestor veneration)

• Religious and ritual objects often convey political, moral, social and religious ideals and norms i.e. Buddha's statues and pagodas as a result of the new religion, different burial items for people with different social status, images of filial piety or chaste widows as the desired modes of behaviour, emperors tombs as a symbol of power)

Bibliography:

Ebrey Buckley, Patricia 1996. The Cambridge Illustrated History of China (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press)

 

Little, Stephen. Eichman, Shawn 2000. Taoism and the arts of China (Chicago, The Art Institute of Chicago)

 

Whitfield, Roderick. ed. 1990. The Problem of Meaning in Early Ritual Bronzes: Colloquies on Art and Archaeology in Asia No. 15 (London, School of Oriental and African Studies)

 

Wolf, Arthur P. 1974. Religion and Ritual in Chinese Society (Stanford, Stanford University Press)

All images: ArtStor online database