Stone carvings, or "murals carved on stone"， originated from the late West Han period. Existence of this art form continued into the East Han period and boomed as members of the upper classes got increasingly rich and powerful and their funerals. increasingly extravagant. These people were no longer satisfied with pictures painted on inner walls of their tombs. They wanted things that were to stay forever with them in the nether world, hence the birth of stone carvings.
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| The God of the Eastern Sky as depicted in a stone carving in a Han Dynasty tomb at Dabaodang, Shaanxi Province. | Stone carvings were jointly done by a mason and a painter. The painter first did a rough sketch on the stone material to be carved, in most cases a stone plate. Then the mason would do the cutting according to the sketch. Three techniques were employed to do the carving. The first was intaglio line cutting, which came earlier than the other techniques. The result would be a picture formed with fine, delicate lines on the surface of the stone plate. The second called for chiseling off the parts immediately beyond the borders of the sketch, followed by cutting of intaglio
lines that formed the pictures and its details. The third resulted in a relief sculpture in its true sense. After the chiseling and cutting were done, the painter would apply colors to the picture. We may safely say that as an art form, stone carvings of the Han Dynasty are paintings done on stone plates.
Most people learned of Han Dynasty stone carvings by viewing their rubbings done with ink, and therefore often mistake them for having only two colors, black and white. This is not true. Inscriptions on stone carvings in Han Dynasty tombs in Cangshan, Shandong Province, indicate that people at the time call stone carvings "paintings". Fine art historians differ on classification of such stone carvings, some calling them "relieves" and others, "stone paintings". No matter how they are called, stone carvings of the Han Dynasty were produced with techniques of both carving and painting.
Stone carvings of the Han Dynasty are found mostly in south Henan, north Hubei, north Jiangsu, north Anhui and northwest Shanxi. Only a few have been found in Sichuan and north Yunnan, where stone coffins with carved pictures and "'cliff tombs" with relieves were more popular.
Stone carvings of the Han Dynasty vividly portray the tomb owners" life and social activities, as well as activities related to industrial and agricultural production. Viewing these carvings, we see with our own eyes how the tomb owners traveled, exchanged visits, dined and wined and enjoyed art performances, and how they were attended by cooks and servants. Such carvings also bring to life women turning cotton mills and men making steel or working at breweries. There are also carvings telling legends and fairy tales with gods and goddesses as heroes or heroines. With such carvings on the inner walls of their "sleeping chambers" in the
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| Stone carvings unearthed from a tomb of the Han Dynasty at Xuzhou, Jiangsu Province. | nether world, the tomb owners had their social status displayed, along with a desire to continue living the same way as when they were alive.
Some stone carvings are in fact stories in pictures, stories with Confucian ideas - loyalty to the monarch, readiness to sacrifice oneself for a just cause, etc.-as the theme. One story is about how Ji Dan, one of the sons of King Wen of the West Zhou, helped his brother, King Wu, win wars that overturned the Shang, and how he devoted himself to his nephew, a child king, after King Wu died. Another story told through stone carvings took place during the Spring and Autumn period. It is about a brigand named Jing Ke who, out of gratitude for the good done to him by the king of the Yah, killed himself after an abortive attempt to murder the king of the Qin who had ruined the Yan. Many more stories are told about filial sons and women who died in defense of their chastity.
A vast majority of the human figures on stone carvings of the Hart Dynasty have their profiles pictured, and few present a front view. In most cases, figures on a stone carving are arranged horizontally along the lower border of the carving. A carving is often divided into several columns, up to seven in one case. There are also carvings done with the bird's-eye-view technique, on which clusters of buildings and guards of honor are depicted. |
