Word: angeli
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Blood-Sweating Steeds. The paintings admired by Confucius in his day have long since disappeared. But lessons passed on by the old masters can still be seen in the paintings and sculpture of the vigorous, expansive T'ang Dynasty, which ruled from 618 through 906, conquered an empire that stretched east to Korea and westward to the borders of Persia...
...secret weapons of the fierce T'ang cavalry were their powerful Bactrian steeds, by legend so mettlesome that they literally sweated blood. The artist who most magnificently portrayed them was the painter Han Kan. Summoned to court by T'ang Emperor Ming Huang, Han was ordered to study the paintings of one of the court painters, took the "Illustrious Sovereign" aback by replying: "My masters are all in Your Majesty's stables." The results of Han's study of the Emperor's 40,000 horses can be seen in his Cowherd (opposite), a painting that...
...within them, became the aspiration and great achievement of the painters who followed under the Sung emperors (960-1279 A.D.). The greatest of them, Tung Yuan, shows in his Dragon Among the Country People the mighty forward leap taken by the Sung artists over their earlier T'ang models. Tung Yuan's eagle's-eye view depicts the mountains, lakes and plains that he saw in Kiangnan, laid out in one majestic sweep that reaches to the horizon. In its vastness, human figures are reduced to mere dots of color. To his contemporaries, and to generations after...
China's mighty T'ang Dynasty ruled China from the 7th to the 10th century A.D. Its invincible generals vanquished the Tartars and subdued the Turkish tribes to open the camel caravan route across central Asia. Chinese silk merchants returned bringing exotic wares and gifts-fiery Bactrian stallions and two-humped camels, spices from Arabia, rich embroideries from Persia. The capital city of Ch'ang-an was thrown open to foreign traders, to Buddhists, Christians, Manichaeans and Jews alike. All that was rich and rare T'ang artists converted to bear their own vigorous stamp...
...high style in the fine silk and brocade worn by the court beauties. Unfortunately, much of what was most perishable, including the scroll paintings and murals, has disappeared, and today is known only through third-or fourth-hand copies. That such might be their fate the T'ang artists may even have suspected. The legend of Artist Wu Tao-tzu indicates at least a premonition. After Wu had finished his greatest mural, he stepped through a secret door as his painting vanished before the eyes of the astonished Emperor. Neither Wu nor his mural was ever seen again...