Chinese Art [antikvár]

PREHISTORY China's geographical position has tended to impose on her a special kind of isolation. From the earliest times this isolation has dictated a slow evolution of traditions and customs rather than a more radical pattern of change. Chinese religious feeling, the source of all cultural forms in China, has also contributed to this slow process. From the third millennium bc onwards, archaeological finds reveal the existence of primitive forms of agriculture in Kansu, Honan and Shantung. The different cultures in those regions, like the Yang-shao in Honan, take their names from the principal finds. Among these are many examples of plain and painted pottery, the latter decorated with simple lines of colour. The decorations on neolithic pottery have their own magic symbolism. Their function was to propitiate the gods, that is, to make them benign. They represent man's first simple steps towards averting the threats and dangers which surrounded him in his daily life and which he attempted to remove by putting his faith in supernatural powers.