Collection Publications: Recarving China's Past

Recarving China's Past: Art, Archaeology and Architecture of the "Wu Family Shrines"

The act of recarving is based on a desire to preserve the past for present and future encounters. In any recarving, whether of history, literature, or the arts, a past model is reenvisioned (zai xian). More than just preserving the past, however, recarving renders the past (jiu) new (xin) through repair and reconstruction. While the term "new" has the meaning of a "fresh start," it also has the connotation of "renovating" or "repairing the past" (xiu jiu), through the recovery of exem­ plary conduct and correct behavior. It is in this sense that the recarving of China's past has often involved identifying what is proper or vital in the past as prerequisite to preserving exemplars for the present and future. It is this "addiction to antiquity," the urge to recover and revitalize what is proper in the past (fu gu), that underlies much of antiquarian scholarship and artistic revival in China. Carved images of legendary rulers and paragons of filial piety and loyalty, historical and mythological stories, scenes of feasting, homage, processions, and omens, and other figural and decorative designs are the subjects of an assemblage of pictorial stones known as the "Wu family shrines." Traditionally dated to the mid-second century during the Han dynasty (206 BCE-220 CE), these carvings, and the rubbings made from them, have been recognized since the Song dynasty (960-1279) as some of the most valuable and authentic materials for the study of Chinese antiquity. For this reason the Wu shrines are fundamental to understanding historical approaches to and methods of studying Chinese art and history, and have also been central to the dating of archaeologically excavated Han tombs and artifacts. The nearly one thousand years of scholarship behind the monument known as the "Wu family shrines" is itself a kind of monument. The history of the "Wu shrines " begins with silence from the third to eleventh centuries. The assemblage was initially formulated through rubbings compiled during the Song dynasty, and held to comprise four inscribed steles, an inscribed gate-pillar, and Stone Chamber 3 (Wu Liang Shrine). Without physical substance or geographic location, the assemblage was known after the thirteenth century through received textual descriptions and through recarved copies and rubbings. Confused transmission and evidence that later interpolations and conflations colored the received story of the stones now cast doubt on the integrity of all the individual inscriptions and on the assemblage as such. For example, it is by no means certain that the four steles-said to be dedicated to four males of the Wu family -originally belonged to this site, or to a Wu family, or were all carved in the Han dynasty. The "Wu shrines" assemblage was only linked to actual carved stones in 1786 when the amateur archaeologist Huang Yi (1744-1802) claimed to have discovered them in present-day Jiaxiang County, Shandong Province. Only after this date does the historical record begin for the majority of the pictorial stones, including those that have been reconstructed as Stone Chamber 1 (Front Chamber) and Stone Chamber 2 (Left Chamber). Preserved at the site, additional slabs have continued to be inserted and several stones with little or no decoration remain at the site and have yet to be recorded. Some stones have gone missing, while some formerly missing stones have recently been located in museums in Tianjin and Berlin. The pictorial carved stones long thought to be part of the Wu cemetery are reexamined in this exhibition and catalogue, as is the conceptual relationship between mortuary architecture and burial items as "brilliant artifacts" (mingqi). Han-dynasty funerary architecture and both the pictorial reliefs and burial objects therein may sometimes have been con­ceived as an ensemble, that is, as sharing an artistic, ritual, and cosmological program. The term "brilliant artifacts" is commonly used today to refer generally to any object placed in tombs; in the Han dynasty, however, the term was con­troversial and sometimes not applied to lifelike figures. Funerary architecture has often been viewed simply as an imitation of aboveground buildings for the living, but there may be a close relationship between the pictorial images depicted in Han funerary monuments and the decoration on burial ceramics, bronzes, lacquers, and other items. Likewise, are the ordinary articles and daily activities pictured on the walls of mortuary structures merely representations, or do they also fulfill a role as "brilliant artifacts"? Appropriate mortuary objects were a matter of dispute during the Han dynasty. A crucial distinction was made between functional objects, made for the living, and their nonfunctional mingqi counterparts, intended only for the afterlife. If mingqi were conceived as imitating the form of objects made for the living, but without their functions, was this analogous to the concept of underground mortuary architecture as imitations of aboveground architecture for the living? Funerary structures are not architecture for the dead. Instead, they are architecture for the afterlife realm between the living and the dead. Tombs imitate the functional divisions of a palace, with front and rear chambers, storage areas, lavatories, and stables; yet the living functions of the chambers are negated: the tomb doors, once closed, do not open, and the stored items are often "brilliant artifacts" that do not function . Beyond this relationship, tomb architecture and mingqi artifacts share other similarities . Some tombs have wall tiles decorated with painted, stamped, or relief designs of pictorial figures; the same decorative techniques are used on mingqi vessels. Likewise, in stone tombs and funerary structures, including the "Wu family shrines," the walls are often decorated with pictorial carvings in fine incised lines, intaglio, relief, or openwork, sometimes enhanced with paint or other decorative techniques. All of these techniques are comparably utilized in bronze, ceramic, jade, lacquer, and stone mingqi burial artifacts . Beyond similarities in artistic techniques, many of the subjects depicted in Han funerary pictorial stone carvings are also found decorating burial artifacts. Shared images include historical and legendary figures, chariot processions, food preparation and banqueting, animals, and supernatural beasts. In many cases the identification of tomb chambers by function relies on the types of mingqi artifacts placed inside; conversely, the placement of mingqi may sometimes have been determined by the location of pictorial images decorating the tomb walls. This allowed tomb chambers to simu­ late palace chambers, while negating their living functions in order properly to provide for the afterlife. -- Cary Y. Liu Curator of Asian art, Princeton University Art Museum