Three Kingdoms China - Art for Kids - Caves of a Thousand Buddhas and other art

Three Kingdoms Chinese Art - 220-581 AD


Wei Dynasty camel (northern China, 500-550 AD) (Musee Guimet, Paris)

It was in the time of the Three Kingdoms that the first artists appear whose names we still know today. One of the earliest Chinese artists whose name we know is Ku K'ai-chih, who lived in the 300's AD (when Constantine was first building Constantinople in West Asia). Ku K'ai-chih is said to have been a great portrait artist - he painted pictures of people. But nothing he painted has survived for us to look at today.


Wei Dynasty (northern China, 504 AD), Apotheosis of Buddha
(Buddha going up to Heaven). (Musee Guimet, Paris)

Chinese artists continued to be inspired by Buddhist themes. Beginning in the 400's AD, they began to paint the Caves of a Thousand Buddhas near Dunhuang. The earliest paintings in these caves were simple pictures of Buddha and his boddhisatvas. The style of these paintings shows that the Chinese artists had been looking at Indian and Roman paintings, though there are many Chinese elements in the style as well.


Royal couple on an elephant, 500's AD
(possibly a Buddhist scene) (from Musee Guimet, Paris)

Wei Dynasty (northern China) armored horse, 400-600 AD, in painted clay (Musee Guimet, Paris)

To find out more about Wei Dynasty Chinese art, check out these books from Amazon.com or from your library:

Art in China (Oxford History of Art Series), by Craig Clunas (1997). Not specifically for kids, but a good introduction to the spirit of Chinese art. Warning: this one is not arranged in chronological order. Instead, it has chapters on sculpture, calligraphy, and so on.

China: Dawn Of A Golden Age (200-750 AD), by James Watt and Prudence Harper (coming soon - fall 2004). This is the catalogue from an exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City - it has great pictures and also a detailed discussion of the art of this period.

Sui Dynasty art
More on China in the Three Kingdoms
Main China page
Main Art page

 



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