Word: ming
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...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...
...Emperor Ming Huang was also a great lover of nature. Homesick for mountains, he one day ordered two of his painters to reproduce the scenery of the Kialing Valley. Artist Wu Tao-tzu went out to lie under the trees, listen to the murmuring streams. Then, having identified himself with the scene, he took his brush, dashed off One Hundred Miles of the Kialing River Valley in a single day. Artist Li Ssu-hsun, who was also a general in the Emperor's army, labored for long months to depict the same scene. Presented to the Emperor, both paintings...
...rare, 1,000-year-old painting on silk, is believed to be his. Done in metallic blues and greens, it creates a panorama of cloud-shrouded peaks and gorges against which is shown a group of horsemen and camels, led by a red-coated figure that may be Emperor Ming Huang himself. In the foreground, pack asses roll in the grass, while the column winds slowly ahead in a procession that ushers into Chinese art the great theme of the all-engulfing landscape...
Ground Rubies & Nutmegs. The national uprising that finally drove the Mongol troops north of the Great Wall and installed a young peasant on the throne as the first Ming Emperor in 1368 rapidly produced an epicurean age of elegance, not unlike that which marked the courts of Europe in the 18th century. The great pottery works of the Sung emperors were revived and expanded. For Emperor Hsuan-te's Dragon Soup Bowl, craftsmen ground rubies to powder to achieve richness of color; court ladies dipped their fingers into exquisite candy dishes for the cardamoms and nutmegs that served...
...proud possessor of the collection's gem, an ink-on-silk painting by Northern Sung Dynasty Painter Li Lung-mien, so rare that the Japanese government has declared it a national treasure. At their home in Falls Church, Va., Osborne and Gratia can trot out genuine Ming dishes for company. Says Gratia: "We don't regret a single thing we bought-only the things we didn...