Animal Imagery in Eastern Han Tomb Reliefs from Shanbei 陝北

Bibliographic Data

ID21974776
AuthorsLeslie V Wallace (0000-0003-1775-6368, Coastal Carolina University, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume12
Issue1
Pages26
Publication date2023-01-30
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueArts (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2076-0752 • E-ISSN: 2076-0752
PublisherMDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT)
DOI10.3390/arts12010026
OpenAlexW4318478751
LanguageEN
References cited14

Wild and fantastical animals climb, fly, scamper, and prance across pictorial stone carvings decorating Eastern Han tomb doors in northern Shaanxi. Alongside dragons and other mythical animals, bears felicitously dance, tigers grin opening their mouths to roar, and other wild animals frolic in swirling cloudscapes. While the same animals can be found in Eastern Han tomb reliefs and mortuary art in other regions, their frequency, emphasis on plasticity and movement, and combination with the yunqi 雲氣 motif are unique to the region. Originating in a hybrid style of art that was created during the Mid-Western Han Dynasty (206 BCE–9 CE), their significance was dependent not so much on any individual creature but on their display as an assemblage of shared forms, behaviors, and habitats. This paper explores how Eastern Han patrons and artists in Shanbei reinvigorated such imagery. It argues that on tomb doors through the region, these same wild and fantastical animals have become a key element of compositions meant to pacify the potentially dangerous realms that awaited the deceased in their postmortem ascension to Heaven (tian 天)

Ancient history · Archaeology · Art · Dance · Ethnology · Geography · Heaven · Visual arts · Chinese history and philosophy · History · Japanese History and Culture · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies

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