SHANG DYNASTY, ca. 1600–1050 BCE
❚The Shang dynasty was the first great Chinese dynasty of the Bronze Age. The Shang kings ruled
from a series of capitals in the Yellow River valley.
❚Shang bronze-workers were among the best in the ancient world and created a wide variety of
elaborately decorated vessels using a sophisticated piece-mold casting process.
ZHOU AND QIN DYNASTIES, ca. 1050–206 BCE
❚The Zhou dynasty was the longest in China’s history. The Western Zhou kings (ca. 1050–771 BCE)
ruled from Chang’an and the Eastern Zhou kings (770–256 BCE) from Luoyang. During the last
centuries of Zhou rule, Daoism and Confucianism gained wide followings in China.
❚Zhou artists produced lavish works in bronze, lacquer, and especially jade.
❚China’s First Emperor founded the short-lived Qin dynasty (221–206 BCE) after defeating the Zhou
and all other rival states.
❚A terracotta army of more than 6,000 soldiers guarded the First Emperor’s burial mound at Lintong.
The tomb itself remains unexcavated.
HAN DYNASTY AND PERIOD OF DISUNITY, 206 BCE–581 CE
❚The Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE) extended China’s boundaries to the south and west and even
traded indirectly with Rome via the fabled Silk Road.
❚Earthenware models found in tombs give a good idea of the appearance and construction methods
of Han wooden buildings.
❚Civil strife divided China into competing states from 220 to 581 CE. The earliest Chinese images of
the Buddha and the first paintings that can be associated with an artist whose name was recorded
date to this so-called Period of Disunity.
❚In the early sixth century, Xie He formulated his six canons of Chinese painting.
TANG DYNASTY, 618–907
❚China enjoyed unequaled prosperity and power under the Tang emperors, whose capital at
Chang’an became the greatest and most cosmopolitan city in the world.
❚The Tang dynasty was the golden age of Chinese figure painting. The few surviving works include
Yan Liben’s The Thirteen Emperorshandscroll illustrating historical figures as exemplars of
Confucian ideals. The Dunhuang caves provide evidence of the magnificence of Tang Buddhist art,
especially mural painting.
❚Korea also enjoyed an artistic golden age at this time under the Unified Silla Kingdom (688–935).
SONG DYNASTY, 960–1279
❚Song China (Northern Song, 960–1127, capital at Bianliang; Southern Song, 1127–1279, capital at
Lin’an) was the most technologically advanced society in the world in the early second millennium.
❚In art, the Song era marked the apogee of Chinese landscape painting. Fan Kuan, a Daoist recluse,
was a pioneer in recording light, shade, distance, and texture in his hanging scrolls.
❚For part of this period, the Liao dynasty (907–1125) ruled northern China and erected the tallest
wooden building in the world, the Foguang Si Pagoda at Yingxian.
THE BIG PICTURE
CHINA AND KOREA TO 1279
Guang, from Anyang,
12th or 11th century BCEArmy of the First Emperor of Qin,
Lintong, ca. 210 BCEModel of a Han dynasty house,
first century CEYan Liben, The Thirteen Emperors,
ca. 650Fan Kuan, Travelers among Mountains
and Streams,early 11th century