TANG DYNASTY HORSE

Tang Dynasty Horse

TANG DYNASTY HORSE

by Sydney Greaves

In the excitement surrounding the new Gill Center, connections between Ancient Egypt and the rest of our collection will play a large part in engaging MAG visitors. In that spirit, let us examine our lovely Chinese ceramic Horse (30.26), standing placidly but boldly, head held high. His molded bridle and saddle are painted in the beautiful three-color glazing known as sancai (sahn-kie), made from copper and iron oxides added to clear glazes. Large clay figures like this were produced from molds, usually in several pieces, and often in multiple versions or poses. Our Horse was acquired in a group with two other horses (currently in storage), one with arched neck, dancing front legs, and bared teeth, the other  bending his neck forward to nibble at his front hoof. Arranged and displayed as a group, their different temperaments and poses would enhance the individuality and personality of each animal.

The Tang Dynasty (618-907 CE) is known as a golden age of Ancient China. Following  400 years of rule by foreign occupation (remember the Intermediate Periods in Ancient Egypt!) the Tang was a period of strong central government, stability, prosperity, and flourishing arts under a native Chinese leadership. Exposure to Western art, cultures, and goods along the Silk Road had a great influence.  The newly-introduced fashion for tea-drinking, with all its necessary accouterments led to great experimentation with ceramics and glazes in order to produce tea–worthy vessels, leading to such innovations as the sancai glazes and eventually the development of true porcelain at the end of the dynasty.

The horse was quite rare in China prior to this time.  It is estimated that there were only about 5000 horses in all of China around 618. Admiration for the magnificent Bactrian or Turkmene horse breed from western Asia inspired a massive acquisition effort led by the emperor himself. Breeding programs in China were rather unsuccessful, so the animals had to be purchased and imported.  One horse cost 40 bolts of silk cloth in the late 8^th century! Despite the cost, the acquisitions were a success, raising the horse population to 706,000 in less than 50 years.

Horse ownership was limited to only the most noble and aristocratic classes, who rode them for hunting, the new game of polo and dance-like dressage performances (i.e. the Lipizzaner stallions of Austria). Their abilities in warfare, demonstrated with such deadly skill by nomadic raiders of the north like the Mongols, caused mounted cavalry to replace the chariot as the primary Chinese war machine.

In addition to the horse’s very real role in Chinese culture, it also developed a legendary status in Chinese mythology. Known as tianma (tee-ahn-mah), or heavenly horse, its true characteristics of speed, strength, and endurance were elevated to mythical proportions: the ability to run thousands of miles a day, sweat blood, and live indefinitely on almost no food or water. The tianma was also said to run so fast that  it could  fly up to heaven—thereby becoming transport for the hun soul to reach eternal paradise.  A similarly-dated horse figurine in the ROM in Toronto bears the inscribed name “Flying Wind,” the perfect name for a heavenly horse.

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Belief in an Afterlife:   A continued spiritual existence and enjoyment of earthly pleasures such as food, possessions, music and occupations following the death of the earthly body was a fundamental aspect of the ancient Egyptian culture.  Early beliefs in China parallel those of the Egyptians in striking ways (however, this does not imply any connection or sharing of ideas between these two cultures, and examples are pointed out only for discussion purposes. It is important to remember that  in the case of both cultures, the objects that survive reflect only the wealthier classes—people who had the time, money, and resources to acquire these objects in the first place!

One surprising similarity between Egyptian and Chinese cultures is a dual-spirit that survives after bodily death , in both cases likely reflecting a reconciliation of regional ideas following a political union (remember the North-South unification of Dynastic Egypt).  In Chinese belief, this duality appears again and again in the concept of yin-yang—the two opposing forces/elements/aspects that together comprise the whole. The Chinese believed the po soul (yin) remained tied to earthly existence, while the hun soul (yang), departed for “heaven.” (a concept in China by 1700 B.C.E.) to eventually rejoin the universal energy force known as chi.  In order to keep the po from wandering and tormenting surviving relatives, compiling the necessary goods, fine figurines, and personal possessions for a well-furnished tomb occupied much of a person’s lifetime, and sometimes put a family in considerable debt.

This need to adequately sustain the earth-bound po soul led also to the very early, short-lived practice of live funerary sacrifice in both cultures.  Servants, animals, even family members were killed and buried in or near the tomb in order to accompany and serve the deceased in death as in life. This practice was quickly recognized as impractical, expensive, and wasteful (not to mention barbaric), and so in China these victims came to be replaced by figurines known as mingqi (ming-chee), objects produced specifically for the wealthy classes for funerary purposes. Like the Egyptian shawabti, these figures were made from baked clay, modeled and painted to fulfill the roles of courtiers, grooms, dancers, musicians and other servants for their noble master in the Afterlife.

It is all of these roles that our beautiful Horse once occupied in a Tang dynasty tomb.

Source: “The Horse in Chinese History: A Brief Overview,” www.ket.org/artof the horse/ed/history.htm ; Watson, William: The Arts of China to AD 900, Yale UP, 1995; Gallery Notes, v. n (Oct. 1930)