“Look, look, a horsy!”: the excitement in the voice my 4-year old is reminiscent of the emotions that inspired generations of craftsman in creating the astounding sculptures of celestial horses and equestrians, currently on display at the TK Asian Antiquities gallery at the Fuller Building. A child’s joy parallels adults’ admiration for the powerful ancient Chinese art. The collection’s artistry is inspirational but can also evoke a touch of envy because its cultural and historic quality can easily overshadow many museum-based presentations.
 
The historic references indicate that horses were domesticated in China around 3000 B.C. and were held in extremely high regard in the Chinese culture. The horse was believed to have kinship to the dragons and as such to be the earthy incarnation of the mythical beast. Horses were glorified and also sacrificed to accompany the nobles in their last journey - similar to the row man on the river Styx legend, the horses in Chinese culture had supposedly the power and the privilege to carry the souls of the mortals to immortality. With time the value of the living animals outweighed the symbolic value of burial sacrifices and clay and wooden models were increasingly provided as substitutions. It may be ironic but the nowadays’ monetary value of these same turn-aesthetic- artifact substitutes surely surpasses the purchase capabilities of their ancient owners.
 
Even thousands of years later it is obvious to any art-lover that regardless of their particular historic period the artists from the Shang, the Zhou, the Qin, and the Han dynasty alike treated their animal objects with affection, care and admiration. The level of detail, the harmony of the colors, and the complexity of man-beast interactions bring into life these remnants of a civilization that may have passed into history but not into oblivion. It may be still questionable how successful these masterpieces might have been in fulfilling the role of heavenly messengers. However, they certainly have succeeded in another particular aspect- these images triumphantly carried the aesthetics and creativity of the ancient artists to cultural immortality.

© iliyan ivanov

 

 

 

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