Northern Wei Lacquer Screens
Today, we’ll introduce a set of lacquer screens from the turbulent Northern Wei Dynasty of more than 1,500 years ago. Due to their exquisite craftsmanship and similarity to early Chinese silk paintings, they were some of the first cultural relics prohibited from going abroad for exhibition.
As I mentioned in a previous podcast, summer vacations in China often include visits to popular museums, and today’s podcast offers another great example.
Now, if you held a contest to choose the most beautiful city names in China, the prize would have to go to Datong. As the second largest city in north China’s Shanxi Province, Datong literally means “great unity”, which embodies the hopes of rulers throughout history, but the name also indicates the city’s strategic location for the governance of a multi-ethnic nation.
Though Datong never served as the capital of a unified dynasty, it was the capital and auxiliary capital of several minority regimes. Therefore, Datong is known as one of the “nine ancient capitals” in China and is blessed with a wealth of historical sites, which serve as a reminder of the city’s rich history.
Many of these sites date back to the Northern Wei, a dynasty founded by Tuoba tribesmen who inhabited the northern frontier. Lasting from year 386 to 534, Northern Wei is the longest of the northern dynasties that existed before the reunification of the Chinese empire under the Sui and Tang dynasties. Datong was the capital of Northern Wei until it moved its capital to the present-day Luoyang in central China’s Henan Province in the year 493.
In spite of the numerous wars and political instability both before and during Northern Wei, there was a surprising level of active intellectual life that provided great impetus to artistic development. Grotto murals, tomb paintings, stone carvings, and lacquer paintings were produced, including the renowned Hanging Temple, the world’s oldest wooden pagoda hanging onto a cliff, as well as the Yungang Grottoes, which features excellent representations of Buddhist art in the 5th and 6th centuries and was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2001.
Datong Museum is perhaps the best place to visit to obtain a glance of these historical sites and relics. Established in 1958, Datong Museum focuses on reflecting the characteristics of minority cultures in north China, as well as highlighting the historical process of ethnic integration. Among its collections, those from the Northern Wei Dynasty are the most famous, especially a set of lacquer screens unearthed from the tomb of Sima Jinlong in 1965.
There was very little historical record about the tomb owner Sima Jinlong. We only know that he was a mixed-blood of the Han and the Tuoba. His father was a member of the imperial family of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, which lasted from year 317 to 420. When the dynasty crumbled after a military coup d’etat, his father fled to Northern Wei, married a Tuoba princess and was conferred the title of Langya King. Sima Jinlong inherited the title from his father, and like his father, also married a Tuoba princess.
A total of 454 cultural relics were unearthed from the tomb of Sima Jinlong, the majority of which were terracotta figurines in various colors. There were also stone plinths and stone coffin beds with exquisite carvings. The designs of the patterns, characters and costumes represent hybridized aesthetics of the Han and Tuoba peoples, reflecting the ethnic integration taking place during the Northern Wei, as well as the preceding Wei and Jin dynasties.
Among the unearthed cultural relics, there is a set of five lacquer screens connected by mortise and tenon joints. Each screen measures 80 centimeters long, 20 centimeters wide, and 2.5 centimeters thick. Each side of the screen has exquisite paintings and inscriptions that highlight stories of moral women, filial sons and daughters, loyal ministers, and wise emperors.
This set of lacquer screens is listed as one of the first batch of 64 cultural relics prohibited from going abroad for exhibition. The list was released by the National Cultural Heritage Administration in 2002. As the only cultural relic selected from the Northern Wei Dynasty, it is a proper national treasure enjoying the same prestige as the famous Houmuwu Ding, a square-shaped bronze cauldron from the Shang Dynasty of more than 3,000 years ago. Currently, three sections of the screen are in the permanent collection of the Datong Museum, while the other two are housed in the Shanxi Museum.
Why are these screens so precious? First, they are lacquerware, a unique handicraft in East Asian civilization. Lacquer is the resin of a family of trees found in South China, as well as in Korea, Japan and Southeast Asia. When exposed to oxygen and humidity, lacquer hardens to become an ideal protective covering for screens, trays, and other instruments. When mixed with pigments, particularly red and black, lacquer becomes an artistic media giving durable luster that can last over millennia.
As a tradition passed down from generation to generation, Chinese lacquerware has an extremely long history. The oldest finding of lacquerware is believed to have originated from the end of the Neolithic Age at the Hemudu Site on the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. Lacquerware played an important role in the etiquette of the royal and aristocratic families during the 3rd and 6th centuries, at a time when heavy bronzeware had withdrawn from the historical stage and the exquisite porcelain had yet to appear.
Producing lacquerware can take a very long time. This is because lacquer coating should be done slowly, layer by layer. Each layer can take quite a long time to dry, and there’s nothing craftsmen can do except wait. After being well polished, lacquerware looks very bright in color, with durable translucence and an elegant luster. The lacquer screens unearthed from the tomb of Sima Jinlong remain vivid and vibrant, emerging miraculously unscathed after more than 1,500 years.
The value of the screens also lies in their resemblance to Admonitions of the Instructress to the Court Ladies, the earliest representation of Chinese silk painting attributed to Gu Kaizhi, who is regarded as the founder of traditional Chinese painting.
A celebrated painter active in the latter half of the 4th century, Gu is best known for his portraits and paintings of human figures. In his own time, he was said to have produced paintings that “no one has ever seen before”. He emphasizes details that reveal the characteristics of his subjects and pays particular attention to eyes in portrait painting. Although more than 70 works of art were attributed to him according to historical records, only three are extant, all in copies.
Admonitions of the Instructress to the Palace Ladies is inspired by a didactic essay of the same title written by Zhang Hua, a famous poet of the Jin Dynasty, aiming at correcting the behavior of an empress. The painting illustrates twelve stories of exemplary concubines throughout history to warn palace ladies to abide by women’s virtues. Unfortunately, Gu’s original work was lost. The scroll currently included in the collection of the British Museum is a copy produced during the Tang Dynasty, which existed from 618 to 907. And the Palace Museum in Beijing also keeps a copy produced during the Song Dynasty, which lasted from 960 to 1279.
The lacquer screens resemble Gu’s painting in terms of their content. As already introduced, there are also exquisite paintings on the screens, depicting stories of moral women, filial sons and daughters, loyal ministers, and wise emperors. Moreover, while there are 12 stories on Gu’s painting, the set of lacquer screens also had 12 pieces originally. Unfortunately, only five were unearthed because the tomb of Sima Jinlong had been robbed before. Therefore, it is already impossible to confirm whether the content of the two are exactly the same.
Aside from the content, the two are also similar in style. The fine and dynamic line delineation on the lacquer screens is almost the same as the delicate and meticulous brushwork of Gu Kaizhi. Art historians speculate that the draft of the lacquer painting either came from the hands of Gu himself or other skilled masters who were good at imitating Gu’s style and techniques. From the perspective of Chinese art history, the paintings on the lacquer screens occupy an important position because they are very close to the time of Gu Kaizhi’s life and even several hundred years earlier than the earliest preserved copy of Admonitions of the Instructress to the Palace Ladies.
Another point worth mentioning is that the inscriptions on the lacquer screens are also masterpieces of Northern Wei calligraphy, known as the Wei Stelae Style. This style marks a typical stage in the transition of Chinese calligraphy from clerical script to regular script, providing significant research value for the evolution of Chinese calligraphy. In this style, characters are less flat and wide as in the clerical style, but appear tall as in the regular style. The strokes are square and firm, and the knots are straight and angular.
Cultural relics are best presented in their original location and together with their counterparts in the same historical scenes. Therefore, only when you come to Datong Museum in person, will you be utterly mesmerized by the bright color and unique glamor of the lacquer screens.
Well, that’s the end of our podcast. Our theme music is by the famous film score composer Roc Chen. We want to thank our writer Song Yimin, translator Yang Guang, and copy editor Pu Ren. And thank you for listening. We hope you enjoyed it, and if you did, please tell a friend so they, too, can understand The Context.