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| Andrew Graham-Dixon gets up close to terracotta warriors |
The
older I get, the more I find myself wondering at just how many evenings I
spent, in my youth, waiting to be entertained by the television: or rather, how
our family entertainment/relaxation was dependent on the box in the corner.
These
days, I tend to watch far less TV – sport is a rare exception and even that’s
hardly a daily occurrence.
The
disadvantage of this is that I have a tendency to miss things that I would
enjoy, so it was with some relief that I discovered, in good time, that a new,
three-part series from Andrew Graham-Dixon, on The Art of China, was due to begin last night on BBC4.
Three
hours is hardly long to explore an art history of such a vast nation – a
history that dates back, uninterrupted, many thousands of years – so
Graham-Dixon picks threads and plots themes that allow him to create a
remarkably coherent picture of a culture that few of us are very familiar with.
We’ve
seen this approach before, in his excellent series on The Art of Germany, for instance, where the first episode had, as
an umbrella idea, the importance of the forest in the German psyche.
It’s
a recurring analysis that much art is concerned with the afterlife: in the
German series, this found realisation in the extraordinary works of religious
art, carved from the trees of those same forests.
In
China, Graham-Dixon began by introducing us to the extraordinary, freestanding
bronze sculptures from the city of Sanxingdui, which is in the south west of
the country, in what is now Sichuan.
These
artifacts were only uncovered by archeologists in 1987 and radiocarbon dating places
them as coming from the 12th-11th centuries BCE. Now that’s old.
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| Bronze head from Sanxingdui |
Many
of the sculptures are heads, with protruding eyes and, in some cases, gold
masks. There is also an astonishingly intricate and delicate sculpture of a
tree, complete with birds.
Various
theories abound, but it seems possible that these were linked to some form of
worship or ritual, possibly connected to ancestors.
The
works had to be pieced, painstakingly back together, after being found,
smashed, in two pits.
It
all adds to the fascination: not only is this a question of why they were made,
but also of why they were destroyed.
The
theme continued with a visit to Mr Yang’s Emporium, where the eponymous Mr Yang
creates card and paper models for people to burn as tributes to the dead.
However
old such an idea might be, the subjects of the tributes were not, with
Graham-Dixon showing us a computer on a desk and a Mercedes, although he found a
cardboard cow, complete with udder, rather more amusing.
But
while the programme branched off into looking at the written Chinese language –
it’s the one remaining hieroglyphic language in the world – and explaining some
of those hieroglyphs, it returned to the theme of people’s relationship with
the afterlife when Graham-Dixon went to look at the Terracotta Army.
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| Bronze tree from Sanxingdui |
It’s
incredible to think that they were only legend until being first unearthed as
recently as 1974, and that the 8,000 figures are only from a small part of a
vast, 22-square-mile site, which could take as long as another century to be
fully excavated.
Graham-Dixon
was allowed to walk among the figures, which gave him the opportunity to show
us how each one was an individual and how they also reflected the ethnic
diversity of the realm of China’s first emperor, Qin Shi Huang (260–210 BCE).
Looking
inside the lower body of one, he was able to point out where the fingers of its
maker had pulled up the clay. And on another, where the maker had first made
his mark – and then the supervisor had stamped it.
And
it was a wonderful description when, looking over the vast building that now
houses them, he described it as being “like
King’s Cross!” before adding: “Here they are. The imperial guard, the
Terracotta Army lined up for all time like commuters waiting to travel into
eternity.”
Less
familiar, but even more extraordinary, he asserted, is the Qin bronze chariot,
which was also found in the site and is formed of more than 3,000 bronze
pieces.
But
what is just as fascinating about the Terracotta Army as its scale and the
skill involved in creating it, is the probable influence of art from further
west – in particular, art that more realistically portrayed the human face.
How
would that influence have found its way to China? That was where the Silk Road
came into the picture.
This
trading route – incredibly dangerous in places – provided a way both in and out
of China.
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| Wu Zetian as a Buddha |
And
along part of it stands the labyrinthine Buddhist cave complex at Dunhuang.
Carved
right into rocky cliffs, the individual chapels are decorated lavishly with Buddhist
images, including a vast statue of a female Buddha, which is said to represent
Wu Zetian (624-705
CE), China’s first female ruler.
She
was a great patron of Buddhism – a religion that had been imported to the
country from India.
The
first programme was, all in all, a fascinating look at the art of China.
Graham-Dixon
has the gift of being able to make things approachable and easy to grasp
without ever dumbing down.
And
the way in which he introduces themes is never forced, but leaves the viewer
with more than enough to actually consider well after the closing titles have
concluded.
There’s
plenty of time to catch up with the first episode – it’s available now on
iPlayer – but this bodes very well for two further weeks of seriously good, grown-up
and intelligent telly.
You
can find out more about the series at the programme’s dedicated website.
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