Sculpture

Art and Artists in the Twentieth Century - Michael Sullivan

After the Mao era. sculpture, printmarking, graphics and other art forms took off without the confines once set.

In traditional China, sculpture was never regarded as one of the fine arts, which were the monopoly of the educated class. The Chinese did not lack a feeling for plastic beauty, but that feeling was satisfied by contemplating archaic bronzes, ceramics, carved jade and the fancy rocks in the scholar's garden and sitting on his desk. The reason for sculpture's low place in Chinese cultural life was a social one. Not since the fifth century- and not often before then - had it been acceptable for a Chinese gentleman to soil his hands with manual labor, except perhaps to tend his chrysanthemums or to carve seals.

This changed some when buddhism was introduced along with the huge stone carvings.

No Chinese scholar ever wrote about sculpture, and no critical vocabulary was ever created to evaluate it.

Chinese painting, poetry, and chamber music depend for their effect upon subtlety and refinement of expression. For the cultivated man, a mere hint is enough. Sculpture can have no place in these rarefied regions; it is too solid. too completely realized, leaving too little to the imagination.