A Dramaturgy of Death: Performing (And Spectating) Filial Piety in Early China

This essay analyzes the early Chinese elite discourse on filial death rituals, arguing that early Chinese texts depict these rituals as performance events. Building on spectacle of xiao sacrifices in the Western Zhou Dynasty, Eastern Zhou authors conceived of filial death rituals as dramaturgical phenomena that underscored not only what needed to be performed, but also how it should be performed, and led to an important distinction between personal dispositions and inherited ritual protocol. This distinction, then, led to concerns about artifice in human behavior, both inside and outside the Ruist (Confucian) tradition. By end of the Warring States Period and in the early Western Han Dynasty, with the embracement of artifice in self-cultivation, the dramatic role of the filial son in death rituals became even more developed and complex, requiring the role of cultivated spectators to be engaged critics who recognized the nuances of cultivated performances.

Historical evolution of urban water conservancy projects in Xi'an, China in the past 3,000 years and its revelations

Xi'an has a special historical position in ancient China, and it has made great achievements in water conservancy projects in all dynasties. The water network skeleton formed mainly by the ‘Eight Waters’ in the territory, along with the historical changes of Xi'an, has experienced the Lantian ape-man ‘living by the water’, the Western Zhou Fenghao ‘built the capital by the water’, and the Qin Xianyang city ‘the Weihe river run through the capital’ Developments and changes such as the ‘diversion of water to develop the capital’ in Chang'an in the Western Han Dynasty, the ‘Eight Waters Ring Capital’ in Chang'an in the Sui and Tang Dynasties, and ‘all go to the water micro’ from the end of the Tang Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty, and the ‘coordinated supply’ after the founding of the People's Republic of China. After sorting out the system, it is believed that the ‘Eight Waters’ in the territory is the original driving force for the flourishing Chang'an in history. From ancient times to the present, with the development of industry, there has been a trend that human settlements and rivers are farther away. Urban water supply has shifted from groundwater sources to surface water sources. This article investigates the evolution of water conservancy project in Xi'an from the Paleolithic Age to the present, and studies the relationship between human production and life and water resources. The changing law and development trend of the water supply structure in Xi'an urban area in modern times are analyzed. We have summarized the enlightenment left to us by the practice of water conservancy projects for thousands of years. This paper provides references for the development and planning of water resources in similar cities. HIGHLIGHT Water source engineering; water supply; water diversion; drainage; water transfer.

FROM THE HISTORY OF THE FORMATION OF THE IMPERIAL ACADEMY OF PAINTING IN CHINA

Court painting in China has evolved over the millennia. With the advent of each new dynasty, the artistic institution at the emperor's court changed its location and name, and so did the status of artists. Fine art and its genre content depended entirely on the emperors' preferences. This article attempts to present a holistic picture of the reformation of the artistic structure at the imperial court at different historical stages, from the Shang dynasty (1600–1046 BC) to the reign of the Qing dynasty (1616–1911). The work presents the artistic structure of China and identifies its leading representatives at each stage of development. The first information about the Imperial Academy of Painting dates back to the period of the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC – 25 AD), when the Shangfang Department was mentioned. During the last Qing dynasty, the court structure of painting was a complex mechanism, with artists working in the Art Department (Huayuanchu), the Ruiguan and Qixiangong workshops.

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

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.

A Study of Musical Instrument Pictographs on Zuojiang Huashan Rock Arts

The Huashan Rock Arts represent the rock pictographs in the Zuojiang River Basin. They record the unique sacrificial scenes by Luoyue people from the 5th century BC to the 2nd century AD. Historical materials, unearthed cultural relics and existing folk customs all prove that the distinguishable musical instrument pictographs on the rock arts include bronze drums, sheep-horn knob bells, ling (small bells with a clapper), etc. All of these also explains why these musical instruments appear on those pictographs, further emphasizing the importance attributed to them on dividing the history of the rock arts into certain periods. This study has found out that after the Western Han Dynasty, the sheep-horn knob bells gradually lost the function of ceremonial and musical instruments due to the destruction of the rite system, thus withdrawing from the historical arena. On the other hand, the artisanship of bronze drums has become more and more exquisite, highlighting its three-fold use for rites, rituals and musical instruments. The drums also continue to occupy a significant part of the music history of the Luoyue ethnic group. Through an in-depth study of the musical instrument pictographs, the music history of the Luoyue is further, clarified and understood.

A Study on the Rock Art of the Tongtian River Basin, Tibetan Plateau of China

In recent years, the Yushu Museum has conducted a systematic investigation on the rock art of the Tongtian River Basin in its prefecture and newly discovered 1230 panels’ rock art (more than 1700 images). This paper is a statistical and comparative analysis of the newly discovered rock art. According to content and production techniques, we divided the rock art of the Tongtian River Basin into two big areas. The West Area is the upper part of the river basin, which is the area above the confluence of Tongtian River and Chumar River (Qumalai River); the East Area is the lower part of the river basin, which is from the confluence to the Batang estuary of Yushu. This area can be subdivided into three subareas. The majority of the Tongtian River Basin’s rock art is categorized as animal type. Yak and deer are respectively the main themes of the West Area and the East Area. In addition, there are other rock art types like symbol, character, pagoda, carriage and so on. The two areas have both commonalities and their own characteristics. Through the typological analysis of production techniques, in the cases of carriage rock art, and deer rock art, we think that the rock art mainly used the whole-image chiseling technique. This technique can be traced back to the Shang Dynasty; the rock art mainly chiseled linearly is dated to the early Zhou Dynasty to the Warring States Period; the rock art that was creates with the line carving technique is dated to the Warring States Period to the Western Han Dynasty; the rock art that was creates with the grind carving technique can be dated back to the Qin and Han dynasties; and the rock art mainly used scratching technique can be traced back to the Ancient Tibetan Empire Period (618-842 AD)

The Establishment and Development of Local Government Authorities of the People's Republic of China

The relevance of the research is primarily due to the fact that most of the aspects of the development of local government in China, despite a number of errors and Chinese specifics, do not cease to be of interest to many countries, especially the States of the post-Soviet space. In this regard, the author has attempted to analyze the formation and functioning of local organs of state administration in China. In the course of the research, the author found that local self-government in China began to be built as an institution in the early 1950s, and finally formed in the 2000s, despite the fact that community traditions in the agricultural areas of China began to take shape during the ruling Western Han dynasty. The most important reason why various aspects of Chinese local self-government attract the attention of domestic sinologists is the annually increasing global role of the PRC in global political and economic processes. In this combination, it is obvious that the system of local government of the PRC is unique and effective, and the experience of the PRC in the formation and organization of the functioning of the local government system can be used by the Russian Federation in the process of optimizing local government.