CategoriesCultural and Religious Styles
Tang Dynasty
Chinese art of 618–907: sancai tomb figures, the Longmen Buddhas, court painting, classic calligraphy and Silk Road gold and silver.
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About
The Tang dynasty (618–907) ruled from Chang'an, then among the largest cities in the world, and its art reflects a confident, outward-looking empire at the eastern end of the Silk Road. Tomb figures give the liveliest picture. Potters modelled horses, Bactrian camels, grooms with foreign features and court musicians, and glazed many of them in the streaky amber, green and cream known as sancai, three-colour ware.
At Longmen, the colossal seated Vairocana Buddha, completed in 675 with funds from Empress Wu, presides over attendants cut into the cliff. Wall paintings in the tomb of Princess Yongtai (706) show slender palace ladies, and Han Gan painted the emperor's horses with vigorous line. Calligraphy reached classic form in the upright regular script of Yan Zhenqing and the wild cursive of Zhang Xu. Gold and silver cups in Persian and Sogdian shapes, and Buddhist treasures sealed in the crypt of the Famen Temple, show the dynasty's luxury.