Another important silk painting was unearthed from the Mawangdui Tomb near Chanshan. It is estimated to belong to the period around 165 BC. The painting is in a T-shape. Archaeologists call it “non-dress” painting as it looks like a dress but could not be worn. Composition of the painting depicts “a soul going to heaven”. The top section of the painting clearly represents the heaven, the middle section is the earth and the low section is underground scene. Reality is mixed with fantasy. The middle earth section tells the story of the person buried. She was the wife of Licang, an aristocrat. She dresses in very colorful lavish silk cloth. Judging from her composure, she looks like an old person. She is waling through a large hall with servants kneeling in front of her and maids following her behind. Slightly below this, there is a banqueting scene but without the presence of the master. The banqueting tables are packed with luxury dishes and plates with delicious foods and glass full of wines. As there is no master present, all the people are not eating and drinking but are standing and bow forward as if they would see the master off. Symbolically she is sent off to the heaven by all her servants and maids. The top heaven section is full of imagination and romantical fantasy. The traditional belief in the Han period was that a person died his or her should would go to heaven and become a celestial being in another world. The celestial world in the painting has the Sun, the Moon and stars above. There is a golden horse on the Sun and jade rabbit on the Moon, two auspicious animals which people in the Han period considered to be associated with the Sun and jade rabbit on the Moon. Also seen is a large mulberry tree shinning in moonlights and a dragon flying through sky. Under moonlight, a young woman flies with the dragon. She looks as if she has eventually escaped the chores of earthly life and totally rejuvenated, dancing with dragon in a celestial world.
This wonderful Han period silk painting carried the tradition which we see first on the silk painting Dragon, Phoenix and Beauties of the Warring State period. All characters on the painting have only showed their side profiles. Chinese ancestors believed that a person’s side profile could demonstrate more of his or her characteristics. The Han silk painting is more sophisticated than the silk painting of the Warring State period. The latter only has simple lines of drawing showing symbolic meanings. Though it carries the symbolic tradition, the Han painting has used more elegant lines of drawing and fine composition to depict an imaginative and romantic story on earth and in heaven. It has adopted “non dress” format to show the direction of painting, from the top to the bottom, the heaven, the earth and the under world. In the middle section of the earthly life, we could also see time direction of the present and the past. The present is above the past. The Han painting also shows more elegant and sophisticated drawing technique. It uses black ink to draw an outline and add colors on spaces in between afterwards. The mineral pigments of cinnabar red, malachite green, azurite blue and chalk white on the painting still have remarkable original colors more than two thousands of years later.
Editor: MetalAllen
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