The Tang Dynasty was regarded by many as one of the cultural pinnacles in the Chinese history. International trade propelled a more global market; the Tang costumes became the symbol of Chinese-ness; calligraphers like Chu Suiliang, Liu Gongquan or Yan Zhenqing traced their artistic pursuit from Wang Xizhi and set the tone for future calligraphic aesthetics and education. The Tang 's poetry and prose writings relish a significant position in the world literary history, and influenced the art scene in other countries with the Chinese World Order. Nevertheless, one of the key aspects of art -- architecture -- failed to preserve many physical remains. There are four major timber-frame buildings from the Tang that still stand, and only a handful
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The essay aims to discuss and summarize the features of the Tang architecture, and investigate the relationship between Tang architectural designs and the socio-economic fundamentals of the society. The booming economy improved the craftsmanship, the sense of hierarchy impacted the exterior style, and the religious aesthetics ruled over the functional considerations. Integrating the works of architecture into the scheme of city planning and figurative representations, the project also discerns the importance of reading the past through partially manipulated art and philosophy.
Structurally, the few remaining works of Tang timber-frame architecture all have religious associations -- the Foguang Temple and Southern Zen Temple at Mount Wuyi, or the Daoist Deity Hall in Shanxi. They advanced the timber-frame engineering to a wholely new level by imposing modular construction and order to realize large-size, large-volume structures. It was believed that the Lingde Hall of Daming Palace was once a space with 17 times 11 bays with an area of over 5000 square meters, and the Southern Zen Temple, although a lot smaller, occupies an area of 3078 square meters. Three factors enabled the architecture …show more content…
Bricks replaced rammed earth to be the foundations of the buildings: the bricks were arranged geometrically stable, and each piece of brick was virtually identical, displaying the capacity for the kiln to standardize and normalize what was originally dissimilar. Black tiles on imperial houses or key religious institutions (like the Foguang Temple) were substantially refined to show off smooth surfaces and compact particle structure. In terms of woods, they were cut into various forms and shapes based upon a certain proportional measurement scale, like the height of dou in the case of the Foguang Temple. The mathematical precision as well as the proportion exerted onto the architecture was hand-in-hand with the Tang 's strictness in the preference of different types of wood as a material, transferring the sense of beauty that was achieved by bureaucratic standards and a Daoist notion of natural worship. More complicated were the decorative motifs and objects besides the structural components. The abundance of decorations over the Tang architecture do not have physical proof in China Mainland. However, the Japanese Buddhist Temples of Nara, say Todaiji or Toshodaiji, used a diversity of decorative artifacts on their exterior. They may include sculptures of deities, casts of birds, colorful tiles, delicate bells, or mini-pagoda metalwork. Comparably, from the archaeological
The essay aims to discuss and summarize the features of the Tang architecture, and investigate the relationship between Tang architectural designs and the socio-economic fundamentals of the society. The booming economy improved the craftsmanship, the sense of hierarchy impacted the exterior style, and the religious aesthetics ruled over the functional considerations. Integrating the works of architecture into the scheme of city planning and figurative representations, the project also discerns the importance of reading the past through partially manipulated art and philosophy.
Structurally, the few remaining works of Tang timber-frame architecture all have religious associations -- the Foguang Temple and Southern Zen Temple at Mount Wuyi, or the Daoist Deity Hall in Shanxi. They advanced the timber-frame engineering to a wholely new level by imposing modular construction and order to realize large-size, large-volume structures. It was believed that the Lingde Hall of Daming Palace was once a space with 17 times 11 bays with an area of over 5000 square meters, and the Southern Zen Temple, although a lot smaller, occupies an area of 3078 square meters. Three factors enabled the architecture …show more content…
Bricks replaced rammed earth to be the foundations of the buildings: the bricks were arranged geometrically stable, and each piece of brick was virtually identical, displaying the capacity for the kiln to standardize and normalize what was originally dissimilar. Black tiles on imperial houses or key religious institutions (like the Foguang Temple) were substantially refined to show off smooth surfaces and compact particle structure. In terms of woods, they were cut into various forms and shapes based upon a certain proportional measurement scale, like the height of dou in the case of the Foguang Temple. The mathematical precision as well as the proportion exerted onto the architecture was hand-in-hand with the Tang 's strictness in the preference of different types of wood as a material, transferring the sense of beauty that was achieved by bureaucratic standards and a Daoist notion of natural worship. More complicated were the decorative motifs and objects besides the structural components. The abundance of decorations over the Tang architecture do not have physical proof in China Mainland. However, the Japanese Buddhist Temples of Nara, say Todaiji or Toshodaiji, used a diversity of decorative artifacts on their exterior. They may include sculptures of deities, casts of birds, colorful tiles, delicate bells, or mini-pagoda metalwork. Comparably, from the archaeological