THE EVOLUTION OF THE FORMS OF SHANDONG PROVINCE'S STONE RELIEFS COMPOSITION OF THE HAN ERA

Author(s):  
Zhicheng Bi ◽  
◽  

The stone reliefs of the Han era (206 BC – 220 AD) are a special type of funerary art with its own specific set of plots and art forms. Shandong Province takes the first place in China in terms of number of founding relief images. The peculiarity of the compositional construction of the Han's reliefs is that it isn’t based on the spatial principle of image transmission, but on the plastic-planar pictorial principle of a two-dimensional composition, which, with its thoughtful use, can carry the maximum emotional charge [Moshkov, Kuznetsov 1994]. Based on that, author’s own typology of the compositions of Han reliefs was built. Article the object of the study are stone reliefs of the Han Dynasty, Shandong Province, represented on stone sarcophagi, in stone tombs, temples of ancestors and steles, and passed the past two stages of its heyday. The purpose and objective of the study is to identify and study the laws of evolution of the composition of the stone reliefs of the Han Dynasty, Shandong Province, based on V.M. Moshkova’s principles of composition, using systemic and iconological research methods. Images on the stone reliefs of the Han tombs are distinguished by the peculiarity of the forms of compositional constructions, the process of development and evolution of which occurs in accordance with certain laws. As a result of the study, it was revealed that the starting point for the development of relief compositions of stone sarcophagi were two forms – symmetrical and nested (including several levels following the outlines and forms of stone material), which during the heyday of the Western Han Dynasty supplemented the “V”-shaped composition. Their further development is associated with the use of dispersed, zoned, irregular composition techniques, which spread around in turn of the CE. At the same time, a variety of compositional forms is also observed in the reliefs of tombs, temples of ancestors and stelae, in the reliefs of which during the period of the Eastern Han (25–220 CE) many different forms of compositional organization appear: for example, asymmetric, segmented, shingles wrong etc. The composition of combinations of geometric shapes, consisting, as a rule, of squares and circles, is also distributed. A variety of compositional forms is associated, on the one hand, with the complication of the architecture of burial structures and an increase in their scale. On the other hand, with the enrichment of the content and plots of reliefs, which is becoming more diverse and includes not only the image of Confucian’s symbols, but also narratives that reflect episodes from the lives of those buried. This indicates not only the process of improving art forms during the Han era, but also reflects a certain evolution of religious and philosophical thought, changes that took place in this period in the social structure of ancient Chinese society, and also, possibly, some external influences on the development of Chinese art.

Philologus ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 151 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Fritz-Heiner Mutschler

AbstractTacitus and Sima Qian (ca. 140-85 BC, author of the Shiji, the Records of the Historian) are eminent representatives of Roman and ancient Chinese historiography. The starting-point of the paper is a striking parallel between the two historians: During the reign of autocratic emperors (of the last of the Flavian emperors, Domitian, and of the most powerful of the Han-emperors Wudi) both authors undergo experiences which not only affect them on a personal level, but also influence their historiographie practice. The paper traces this influence with respect to the representations of individual historical characters. On the one hand it analyses the representations of rulers: of Tiberius, adoptive son and successor of Augustus, and of Wendi, natural son and (indirect) successor of Gaodi, the founder of the Han-dynasty; on the other hand it studies the representations of second and third rank characters such as senators, ministers, generals, and - in the case of Sima Qian - also of people from other walks of life. The similarities which can be observed between the two authors point to the existence of certain anthropological constants, whereas the differences are to be attributed to basic differences in Roman and Chinese political thinking and to differing degrees of the intensity of the experiences undergone by each historian.


1976 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 20-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. A. Stewart

Professor Parkinson in his lecture on ‘The Translation Theory of Understanding’ (pp. 1–19 above) discusses two stages in the development of a false but influential tradition which he finds common to Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding and Professor George Steiner's After Babel. He is not, of course, alleging any direct historical influence of the one on the other; neither is he principally addressing Steiner's book as a whole, but rather the account of understanding upon which it appears to be founded. I should like to take his paper as the starting-point for my own, but begin from a somewhat broader view than he does of the legacy of Locke. With Parkinson's constructive position I have no quarrel, and I shall not address myself directly to it.


Screen Bodies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 81-95
Author(s):  
Carlos Rojas

Taking as its starting point the “original” variant of Alan Turing’s famous “imitation game” (in which a test subject attempts to differentiate, based purely on textual output, between a man and a woman), this article considers the ways in which gender and sexuality are simulated in the contemporary genre of virtual romance or dating video games. The article focuses on three Sinitic games, each of which strategically queers this predominantly heteronormative genre. In queering desire, moreover, these Sinitic games simultaneously suggest ways in which Chinese society itself may also be strategically queered.


2021 ◽  
pp. 053901842199894
Author(s):  
Frank Adloff ◽  
Iris Hilbrich

Possible trajectories of sustainability are based on different concepts of nature. The article starts out from three trajectories of sustainability (modernization, transformation and control) and reconstructs one characteristic practice for each path with its specific conceptions of nature. The notion that nature provides human societies with relevant ecosystem services is typical of the path of modernization. Nature is reified and monetarized here, with regard to its utility for human societies. Practices of transformation, in contrast, emphasize the intrinsic ethical value of nature. This becomes particularly apparent in discourses on the rights of nature, whose starting point can be found in Latin American indigenous discourses, among others. Control practices such as geoengineering are based on earth-systemic conceptions of nature, in which no distinction is made between natural and social systems. The aim is to control the earth system as a whole in order for human societies to remain viable. Practices of sustainability thus show different ontological understandings of nature (dualistic or monistic) on the one hand and (implicit) ethics and sacralizations (anthropocentric or biocentric) on the other. The three reconstructed natures/cultures have different ontological and ethical affinities and conflict with each other. They are linked to very different knowledge cultures and life-worlds, which answer very differently to the question of what is of value in a society and in nature and how these values ought to be protected.


2004 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-58
Author(s):  
Jeffrey S. Galko ◽  

The ontological question of what there is, from the perspective of common sense, is intricately bound to what can be perceived. The above observation, when combined with the fact that nouns within language can be divided between nouns that admit counting, such as ‘pen’ or ‘human’, and those that do not, such as ‘water’ or ‘gold’, provides the starting point for the following investigation into the foundations of our linguistic and conceptual phenomena. The purpose of this paper is to claim that such phenomena are facilitated by, on the one hand, an intricate cognitive capacity, and on the other by the complex environment within which we live. We are, in a sense, cognitively equipped to perceive discrete instances of matter such as bodies of water. This equipment is related to, but also differs from, that devoted to the perception of objects such as this computer. Behind this difference in cognitive equipment underlies a rich ontology, the beginnings of which lies in the distinction between matter and objects. The following paper is an attempt to make explicit the relationship between matter and objects and also provide a window to our cognition of such entities.


KronoScope ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-27
Author(s):  
Carl Humphries

Abstract “Being is said in many ways,” claimed Aristotle, initiating a discussion about existential commitment that continues today. Might there not be reasons to say something similar about “having been,” or “having happened,” where these expressions denote something’s being located in the past? Moreover, if history – construed not only as an object of inquiry (actual events, etc.) but also as a way of casting light on certain matters – is primarily concerned with “things past,” then the question just posed also seems relevant to the question of what historical understanding amounts to. While the idea that ‘being’ may mean different things in different contexts has indisputable importance, the implications of other, past-temporal expressions are elusive. In what might any differences of substantive meaning encountered there consist? One starting point for responding – the one that provides the subject matter explored here – is furnished by the question of whether or not a certain way of addressing matters relating to the past permits or precludes forms of intelligibility that could be said to be ‘radically historical.’ After arguing that the existing options for addressing this issue remain unsatisfactory, I set out an alternative view of what it could mean to endorse or reject such an idea. This involves drawing distinctions and analogies connected with notions of temporal situatedness, human practicality and historicality, which are then linked to a further contrast between two ways of understanding the referential significance of what is involved when we self-ascribe a relation to a current situation in a manner construable as implying that we take ourselves to occupy a unique, yet circumstantially defined, perspective on that situation. As regards the latter, on one reading, the specific kind of indexically referring language we use – commonly labelled “de se” – is something whose rationale is exhausted by its practical utility as a communicative tool. On the other, it is viewed as capturing something of substantive importance about how we can be thought of as standing in relation to reality. I claim that this second reading, together with the line of thinking about self-identification and self-reference it helps foreground, can shed light on what it would mean to affirm or deny the possibility of radically historical forms of intelligibility – and thus also on what it could mean to ascribe a plurality of meanings to talk concerning things being ‘in the past.’


2014 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Domenico Celenza ◽  
Fabrizio Rossi

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to investigate the relationship between corporate performance and Value Added Intellectual Coefficient (VAICTM) on the one hand, and the relationship between the variations in market value and the variations in VAIC on the other hand. Design/methodology/approach – Starting from the VAIC model, 23 Italian listed companies were examined with the aim of investigating the relationship between VAIC and the performance of the firms in the sample. The analysis was divided into two stages. In the first stage, eight models of linear regression were estimated to verify the presence of a positive and statistically significant relationship between M/BV and VAIC and between accounting performance indicators (ROE, ROI, ROS) and the VAIC. In the second stage, six other models were tested, considering as an independent variable the variations in VAIC and the variations in profitability indicators. Findings – The outcomes of the application stress the importance of VAIC in the explanation of the variations in MV and its role as “additional coefficient” in the analysis of equity performance. Originality/value – This methodology highlights some very interesting aspects. In particular, whereas the relationship between M/BV and VAIC and between profitability indicators (ROI, ROE, ROS) and VAIC is statistically insignificant, the subsequent analysis highlights the importance of VAIC as a variable capable of increasing the explanatory power of the regression in a cross-sectional perspective.


2012 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-219 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shu-Heng Chen ◽  
Chia-Ling Chang ◽  
Ye-Rong Du

AbstractThis paper reviews the development of agent-based (computational) economics (ACE) from an econometrics viewpoint. The review comprises three stages, characterizing the past, the present, and the future of this development. The first two stages can be interpreted as an attempt to build the econometric foundation of ACE, and, through that, enrich its empirical content. The second stage may then invoke a reverse reflection on the possible agent-based foundation of econometrics. While ACE modeling has been applied to different branches of economics, the one, and probably the only one, which is able to provide evidence of this three-stage development is finance or financial economics. We will, therefore, focus our review only on the literature of agent-based computational finance, or, more specifically, the agent-based modeling of financial markets.


2008 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-68
Author(s):  
Gordana Djeric

This text is part of a research conducted under the working title "What do we talk about when we are silent and what are we silent about when we are talking? - premises for the anthropology of silence about the nearest past." In the first part the author investigates the meaning of silence in the Croatian and Serbian press right before and during Croatia's Operation Storm. The ratio between silence, suppression of information and forgetting, on the one hand, and social memory, on the other, has been elaborated in the final part of the text by following reports about the anniversaries of Operation Storm in both Croatian and Serbian publics. The starting point lies in the belief that the phenomenon of silence (and suppression of information), being an immanent part of each discourse, represents an important factor in the creation of social relationships and system of value models, that it has important communication and cognitive functions and that the performance character lies in its essence. In short, silence makes it possible to form the prevailing image about this event, even if it does not construct it indirectly - through speech. The author has elaborated on the meaning of silence in the context of Operation Storm partly because studies about the breakup of Yugoslavia frequently mention silence as a manipulation strategy employed by some of the sides in the conflict (or analysts dealing with Yugoslav topics), while not a single study systematically investigates the semantic of silence and suppression of information in these conflicts. Most importantly, taking into account the frequency of direct silence in the newspaper discourse and rhetoric strategies that point at silence indirectly from the context and discourse, the author focuses on the relationship between the event (situation) and silence. In order to shed light on the way in which Operation Storm is remembered, i.e. forgotten, in the stakeholders' publics and political imageries, she follows the dailies - Vecernje Novosti Politika, Danas (Belgrade) - Vecernji List, Jutarnji List, Magazin supplement of the Jutarnji List (Zagreb), as well as texts about Operation Storm in weeklies such as the NIN and Vreme of Belgrade or Globus of Zagreb in the period between August 2, 1995 and mid-August 2006.


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