Chinese Art - Terracotta Army
Terracotta Army, Qin Dynasty
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| Today in class we explored the topic of Chinese art and as expected the topic of the terracotta warriors came up, as it typically does when discussing any form of Chinese art. Of course many people know of the Terracotta warriors, an 8,000 man army of Terracotta warriors tasked with protecting the emperor in the afterlife, however there are many common myths surrounding this some believe that the warriors were constructed from the terracotta clay by hundreds of craftsmen others believe these terracotta soldiers act as coffins, housing the thousands of the emperors army which would explain the individual details on the sculptures, but of course the ladder was a myth. Each terracotta soldier was constructed from clay with experts believing this 8,000 man army taking 8 years to be constructed, which would have been a painstaking task considering it was all done by hand without the use of molds, which was previously believed by archaeologists however the soldiers all appear to have unique features distinguishing them from each other and looking at the hollow inside of varies terracotta soldiers each is made up with multiple different sizes of clay with placement of each piece being random on each of the sculptures which dismisses the idea of a mold being used in the process. The myth that the terracotta soldiers being the homes for thousands of dead soldiers possibly stems from the very real sacrifices that were done by previous emperors before Emperor Qin, many Emperors would bury there entire court, personal bodyguard and concubines, with many of there servants and companions gladly submitting themselves to self-sacrifice because the Chinese people held a strong belief that their was life after death and in that new life they would continue to serve there emperor. However this became less favorable over the years as wars became more common with people becoming more valuable for tools of war and so small sculptures of soldiers began to replace the real thing, until the Tyrant emperor Qin proposed his idea of an 8,000 army of statues, all to be built at human size. Qins burial was not without sacrifice. More than 3,000 concubines were murdered to serve their emperor in the after life("Xian Terracotta Warriors - Facts, Are They Real and How Were They Made", 2019), and upon the completion of the tomb and the Terracotta sculptures thousands were murdered so known could tell of the Emperors burial site and the 8000 Terracotta Warriors and horses leading bronze chariots were buried("Xian Terracotta Warriors - Facts, Are They Real and How Were They Made", 2019). They were all left undiscovered for centuries while they kept guarded the Emperor in his afterlife. |
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