History of Chinese Sculpture

When it comes to sculpture, it seems that there are only western sculptures in people's impression. Perhaps most people can name several western sculptors, such as Milon in ancient Greece, Michelangelo in Italy, Rodin in France; Or their representative works, such as The Discus Thrower, David, The Thinker, etc. But most people don't know much about Chinese sculpture. At least compared with western sculpture, we know too little about the culture and art of our motherland.

In fact, like other ancient civilizations in the world, Chinese sculpture has a very long history, which can be traced back to at least 4000 BC. According to archaeological findings, in the early 1980s, relief sculptures of toad and snake holding frog and jade carvings were found on pottery jars at Chahai Site in Fuxin County, Liaoning Province. In the 1990s, a 19.7m long dragon shaped stone carving was cleared up at the settlement site. The artworks unearthed at these two historical sites are more than 8000 years ago.

History of Ancient Chinese Sculpture

Ancient Chinese sculpture has a very rich heritage, and has had a very brilliant period. The Tang Dynasty can be called an ideal period, and it occupies a very important position in the history of world sculpture. However, due to the lack of systematic and accurate literature records and theoretical research, there was a fault in the development of the Ming and Qing dynasties. As Mr. Liang Sicheng said in the History of Chinese Sculpture, "Those who speak of art in our country always mention both calligraphy and painting. People who are good at antiquity sometimes talk about gold and stone, but their ideas about gold and stone are still dominated by calligraphy. Therefore, the market price of bronze wares in Yin and Zhou Dynasties is determined by the number of characters; those with characters are worth dozens of times more than those without characters, and the beauty and ugliness of their forms are often ignored by buyers. Although the price of money is not enough to be used as a standard for artistic judgment, the common people's view of gold and stone is already obvious.

”In the early 20th century, China began to introduce the system of western sculpture creation and teaching, and borrowed western sculpture concepts, aesthetic experience and even sculpture terminology for teaching, creation and research. Such measures did indeed play a positive role in promoting at that time, but their side effects were also obvious. First, the original unsystematic local sculpture research was merged by the Western sculpture system, losing the face of the id, or even disappearing; The second is that a considerable part of Chinese traditional sculpture has been reduced to folk craft and craftsman craft in academic status, which has led to the emergence of the fallacy that "China has no sculpture".

History of Contemporary Chinese Sculpture

In fact, the Chinese civilization is an independent civilization. Although its development will have some lines and characteristics similar to those of other civilizations, the overall development process may not be consistent. Therefore, it is indeed beneficial at the initial stage to view Chinese sculpture with the relatively mature sculpture theory and evaluation system in the West. But we must also realize that the theoretical system of western sculpture cannot completely cover Chinese sculpture. As the saying goes, "A stone from another mountain can be used to attack jade." Although we can't build a car behind closed doors, there is no need to belittle ourselves. Only by standing on the height of the entire Chinese art history and adhering to certain principles of sublation, can we better understand Chinese traditional sculpture, and then appreciate the charm of Chinese culture, and promote the common development of contemporary Chinese sculpture creation and theoretical research.

Hainan Sculpture

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