MEDIEVAL CHINA: The Tang Dynasty (618-906)
Syllabus
and
Schedule of classes
Seminar presentations
The topics for this course will be divided equally among all students. Each week, one student will lead the seminar discussion, first by presenting information gained from the readings, which may also include a critical examination of sources, and then by engaging the rest of the seminar group in a discussion of the topic. The student may assign readings one week prior to presentation of the seminar. The rest of the group will prepare for class by completing the readings beforehand and developing two discussion questions based on the readings. Suggested readings and questions are given on the syllabus. These are by no means comprehensive and need not be strictly followed; students are encouraged to develop their own ideas in consultation with the instructor.
Research papers
Students will be required to submit a research paper of approximately eight to ten double-spaced, typed pages, not including endnotes, bibliography and illustrations. This paper is due on 16 APRIL 1999.
Schedule of classes:
Week 1 (11 January)
Introduction to course
Week 2 (18 January)
Martin Luther King, Jr., Birthday observed
Week 3 (25 January)
Introduction to Tang culture
Margaret Medley, "A Chinese Renaissance: The T'ang Dynasty," History Today, 5 (1955), 263-71.
Michael Sullivan, The Arts of China. 3rd ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), chapter 7: The Sui and T'ang Dynasties.
Denis Twitchett (ed.), The Cambridge History of China (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1978), vol. 3, chapter 1: Introduction.
Arthur F. Wright and Denis Twitchett (eds.), Perspectives on the T'ang (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973), introduction, 1-43.
1. How would you characterize the cultural environment of the Tang? What were some of the main achievements?
2. How was the dynasty established? Which emperors figured most prominently in Tang history?
3. What were some of the major political events during this period? What impact did these events have on later dynasties?
4. What were some of the major artistic forms? Which arts in particular may be seen to characterize the Tang dynasty?
Week 4 (1 February)
Buddhism and Buddhist art I: introduction
Lanxing Hong, "In the Footsteps of Xuanzang," Beijing Review, vol. 37 no. 12 (March 21, 1994), 40.
Edwin O. Reischauer, Ennin's Travels in T'ang China (New York: The Ronald Press, 1955; see especially chapters V: Life in T'ang China; VI: Popular Buddhism; and VII: The Persecution of Buddhism.
1. How was Buddhism transformed from a foreign religion into one which was Chinese?
2. What governed the flourishing or the persecution of Buddhism during the Tang?
3. What was the general attitude of the ruling elite toward Buddhism?
Week 5 (8 February)
Buddhism and Buddhist art II: painting and sculpture
Amy McNair, "Early Tang Imperial Patronage at Longmen," Ars Orientalis, vol. 24 (1994), 65-81.
Henrik H. Sorensen, "Sculptures at the Thousand Buddhas Cliff in Jiajiang, Sichuan Province, " Oriental Art, vol. 43 (Spring 1997), 37-48.
Marsha Weidner (ed.), Latter Days of the Law. Images of Chinese Buddhism 850-1850 (Lawrence, KS: Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas, 1994), see catalogue entries on Tang material.
W. Zwalf, Buddhism: Art and Faith (London: The British Museum, 1985), 197-199; catalogue entries 284, 290, 291, and 292.
1. What major art forms were affected by Buddhism? What are the characteristics of Tang style?
2. Where are the major monuments?
3. Which deities were depicted most often? Why?
4. What impact did imperial patronage have on the creation of large-scale Buddhist art during the Tang period?
Week 6 (15 February)
Buddhism and Buddhist art III: the caves at
DunhuangAnil DeSilva, The Art of Chinese Landscape Painting in the Caves of Tun-huang (New York: Crown Publishers, 1964).
Jeannette Mirsky, "Discovering the Ancient Treasures in 'Caves of the Thousand Buddhas'," Smithsonian, (May 1977), 94-103.
Arthur Waley (ed.), Ballads and Stories from Tun-huang (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1960).
Roderick Whitfield, "Visions of the Buddha World: Paintings from Dunhuang," Apollo (July 1984), 14-17.
Roderick Whitfield and Anne Farrer, Caves of the Thousand Buddhas: Chinese Art from the Silk Route (New York: George Braziller, 1990).
Lilla Bikfalvy Russell-Smith, "Thousand Buddha Temples of Dunhuang," Middle Way, vol. 71 no. 1 (May 1996), 37- .
1. What was Dunhuang's importance in terms of location?
2. What is the history of the site, including its "re-discovery"?
3. What types of artifacts have been found at Dunhuang?
4. How do these various objects tell us about Tang culture?
5. What is the future of Dunhuang?
Week 7 (22 February)
Secular painting and sculpture I: the birth of landscape painting
Mary H. Fong, "Tang Tomb Murals Reviewed in the Light of Tang Texts on Painting," Artibus Asiae, vol. 45 no. 1 (1984), 35-72.
Charles H. Lachman, "The Image Made by Chance in China and the West: Ink Wang Meets Jackson Pollack's Mother," The Art Bulletin, vol. 74 no. 3 (September 1992), 499-510.
Elizabeth Lyons, "Ming Huang's Journey to Shu," Expedition, vol. 28 no. 3 (1986), 22-28.
Michael Sullivan, Chinese Landscape Painting in the Sui and T'ang Dynasties (Berkeley, 1980).
Lewis C. and Dorothy B. Walmsley, Wang Wei: The Painter-Poet (Rutland, VT, 1968)
1. What place did painting occupy in Tang culture?
2. What types of painting existed in the Tang period? What were their precedents?
3. How did the division of Northern and Southern Schools take place? What was it based on? What were the main features of the styles of each of these "schools"?
Week 8 (1 March)
Secular painting and sculpture II: figure painting and other themes
Wen C. Fong, Beyond Representation. Chinese Painting and Calligraphy, 8th to 14th Century (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art), chapter 1: Of the Human World: Narrative Representation.
Robert E. Harrist, "Watching Clouds Rise: A Tang Dynasty Couplet and its Illustration in Song Painting," The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, vol. 78 (November 1991), 301-323.
1. What were the major themes in Tang painting, and why?
2. What do paintings reveal about the life of women in the Tang? In what sorts of activities could she engage?
3. Aesthetically, what did the ideal Tang woman look like? What did she wear? How was this trend started?
4. What other types of information can be obtained on the world of the court and on popular culture through paintings?
5. Who were the major artists and what defined their style(s)?
Week 9 (8 March)
Tang poetry and literature and their relation to the visual arts
Edward H. Schafer, The Divine Woman: Dragon Ladies and Rain Maidens in T'ang Literature (San Francisco: North Point Press, 1980), chapter 3: The Great Water Goddesses in T'ang Poetry, pp. 89-132.
Hans Frankel, "The Contemplation of the Past in T'ang Poetry," in Perspectives on the T'ang, ed. by Wright and Twitchett, 345-65.
Elling O. Eide, "On Li Po," in Perspectives on the T'ang, 367-403.
Arthur Waley, The Life and Times of Po Chü-i (New York: Macmillan, 1949).
William Hung, Tu Fu: China's Greatest Poet (New York: Russell and Russell, 1969).
John Knoepfle and Wang Shouyi, T'ang Dynasty Poems (Peoria, Illinois: Spoon River Poetry Press, 1985).
1. How does a Tang poem "work"? How does it differ from and English poem?
2. How was poetry used in Tang China?
3.What place did poetry occupy in Tang literature?
4. What are the relationships between the arts of painting, poetry and calligraphy?
Week 10 (15 March)
Ceramic arts
Margaret Medley, The Chinese Potter. 2nd ed. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986).
William Watson, Tang and Liao Ceramics (London: Thames and Hudson, 1984).
1. What was the main purpose of ceramic art in the Tang dynasty?
2. How can these objects tell us about Tang culture? What are some examples?
3. What were the main innovations of the Tang potter? What are some of the specifics of the compositions of the clay bodies and glazes? How are these distinctive?
Week 11 (22 March)
Visit to the Birmingham Museum of Art
Week 12 (5 April)
Architecture and the city
Saehyang P. Chung, "A Study of the Daming Palace: Documentary Sources and Recent Excavations," Artibus Asiae, vol. 50 no. 1/2 (1990), 23-72.
F.W. Mote, "The City in Traditional Chinese Civilization," in James T.C. Liu and Tu Wei-ming, eds., Traditional China (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1971), chapter 4.
Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt, "Hanyuan Hall," in Chinese Traditional Architecture (New York: China Institute in America, 1984), 91-99.
Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt, "Nanchan Si Main Hall," in Chinese Traditional Architecture (New York: China Institute in America, 1984), 102-107.
Laurence Sickman and Alexander Soper, The Art and Architecture of China (Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, 1971), chapter 34: "The Second Imperial Age: Sui and T'ang."
A.F. Wright, "Symbolism and Function: Reflections on Ch'ang-an and Other Great Cities," Journal of Asian Studies, 24 (1965), 667-679.
1. How is the Chinese city different from its Western counterparts?
2. What does the Chinese city represent cosmologically? On what basic principles was it constructed?
3. What were the basic features of the Tang city?
4. What were the advantages and disadvantages to living in the city?
5. What were the main architectural structures in the Tang? Did these building styles and methods of construction persist beyond the Tang period?
Week 13 (12 April)
Foreigners in Tang society and the arts
Jane Gaston Mahler, The Westerners Among the Figurines of the T'ang Dynasty of China (Rome, 1959).
Patricia Eichenbaum Karetsky, "Foreigners in Tang and Pre-Tang Painting," Oriental Art, n.s. 30 (Summer 1984), 160-166.
Margaret Medley, "T'ang Gold and Silver," in Pottery and Metalwork in T'ang China, edited by William Watson. Colloquies on Art and Archaeology in Asia, No. 1 (London: Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, 1970), 16-22.
1. How did the Chinese see foreigners? How did the foreigners see themselves?
2. To what extent did the foreigners in China share Chinese culture?
3. What roles did foreigners play in Tang society? What contributions did they make to the arts?
4. What was the Tang attitude toward foreign religions?
Week 14 (19 April)
Tang influence on Japanese culture
Ryoichi Hayashi, The Silk Road and The Shoso-in. Heibonsha Survey of Japanese Art, vol. 6 (New York: Weatherhill, 1975).
Yutaka Mino, The Great Eastern Temple: Treasures of Japanese Buddhist Art from Todaiji (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1986).
1. Why do we see such a strong influence from Tang China in early Japanese art and architecture? What forms does this influence take?
2. How important was Buddhism to the transmission of Chinese culture to Japan? When was Buddhism introduced to Japan?
3. What areas of Japanese culture in addition to painting, sculpture and architecture were affected by influence from China?
4. What Chinese objects are preserved in Japan? Where are they located?
Week 15 (26 April)
Course wrap-up
