Painted wood chicken
Painted wooden flocks
Painted wooden reclining dogs
Painted wooden chicken perch
Painted wooden monkey (Image from Gansu Provincial Museum)
The Mozuizi Han Tomb Group is located in the foothills of the Qilian Mountains and on both sides of the Zamu River, 15 kilometers southwest of Wuwei City, Gansu Province. In the decades of archaeological excavations in the Wuwei Mozuizi Han Tomb Group, a large number of animal-like wood carvings have been unearthed, which has amazed archaeologists. These wood carvings are not only exquisitely carved, vivid and vivid, and have a wide variety, but also appeared in the Mozuizi Han tomb group as funerary tools, indicating that the use of this animal-like wood carving to accompany the burial was a common phenomenon at that time.
The wooden carvings of animals buried in the ground come with a strong atmosphere of life, so that today's people seem to see the lively scenes of horses and cows, chickens and dogs barking, sheep and monkeys frolicking in this land two thousand years ago.
The dynamic beauty of animals under the axe
The mozuizi Han tomb group tombs are distributed on a hilly terrace formed by earthen mountains, and within the range of 1000 meters long from north to south and 700 meters wide from east to west, the tombs are densely packed and very concentrated. The tomb is generally an earthen cave tomb, which is composed of three parts: the tomb passage, the tomb door and the burial chamber. Larger tombs also have a back chamber, a side chamber, or an ear chamber. The tomb passage is sloped, and the tomb door is a cave-type connection and communication burial chamber. Most of the burial chambers are rectangular caves about 4 meters long and 3 meters wide, and there are three, double, and single burials, and the burial tools are wooden coffins. Due to the large alkalinity of the soil here, the soil is mixed with a kind of litmus material, the soil is very hard, coupled with the hilly terrace, the ground is dry, and it has the superior conditions for preserving underground cultural relics. Therefore, the tombs here and the burial utensils in the room are well preserved, especially some woodware, silk, hemp, straw weaving, etc. that are not easy to store can be preserved, and the cultural relics are extremely rich.
The Mozuizi Han Tomb Group is a treasure trove of rich underground cultural relics, and was designated as a key cultural relics protection unit in Gansu Province in November 1963. In 1955 and 1959, the Gansu Provincial Museum carried out two excavations, cleaned up a total of 37 Han tombs, and unearthed a number of precious cultural relics.
Among the many excavated wooden artifacts, there are many animal figurines with beautiful shapes, which are of great research and ornamental value.
Judging from the excavated animal wood carvings, they are almost all common domestic animals and poultry animals in people's daily lives, including horses, cattle, dogs, sheep, monkeys, chickens, geese, etc., as well as some birds such as wooden pigeons, wood doves, wooden eagles and long-tailed birds, as well as unicorns and tigers.
The materials used for wood carving of these animals are mainly pine wood, poplar and other woods that are easily available in Hexi. Some are made by cutting a piece of wood as a whole, such as wooden monkeys, wooden chickens, wooden dogs, wooden geese, etc. Some are carved out of the animal's head, body, limbs, tail, ears and horns, etc., and then combined together, such as wooden cattle, wooden horses and so on. The size of these animal wood carvings varies, generally speaking, large domestic animals such as horses, cattle and unicorns are relatively large, and dogs, sheep, geese, etc. are relatively small, which still has certain realistic significance.
These wood carving animals have a common feature, made of bold axes, simple techniques, rough atmosphere, random shape, dynamic, exaggerated and distorted artistic shape. Most of these wood carvings are painted, mainly black, white and red, and the pen is unrestrained, combined with the ancient and atmospheric wood carvings, presenting a kind of return to the basics, majestic and free-spirited atmosphere of the times.
The drastic sculptural techniques have freed these animals from the complicated appearance and strongly reflected their essential things. People take local materials, adopt realistic and exaggerated modeling expression techniques, based on real-life animals, boldly omit excess animal appearances, grasp the part that can most accurately express the characteristics of animals, and concisely reflect the details of wood carving through dynamic changes, and grasp the extremely good, although it is a realistic carving performance, it is by no means a simple imitation of the physical object like a cat painting, but it is very accurate to convey the different looks and characteristics of animals in different situations.
For example, the wooden dogs unearthed from the Mozuizi Han Tomb Group, although the volume is not large, have more than 5 different postures, some of the head and tail stretch into a line, idle and bored to rest, but the ears are erect, very vigilant to listen to the surrounding movements; some look up, limbs on the ground, the mouth is half open, but the action of looking up and looking up, exposing the mentality of being ready to jump up at any time; there are also relaxed, lively and cute puppies looking down to feed, and the tail is high, showing the naughty and competitive attitude of the puppies. Their momentary movements were accurately represented by the craftsmen.
There is also a very simple wooden chicken, a few knives, the rooster's proud temperament is instantly presented in front of people's eyes; the small wooden goose looks leisurely, or leads the neck to sing, or bows its head to forage, although there is no water surface, it is floating on its own; the sun is tilted to the west, the sheep return, leisurely and scattered; the wooden monkey scratches its ears and scratches its cheeks, as if it is squeaking and squeaking... Watching these animal-like wood carvings makes you feel like you are in a pastoral courtyard.
The majestic and atmospheric aesthetic pursuit of the Han Dynasty
Wood, as a carving material, has certain limitations. It is not like the clay sculpture of the Terracotta Warriors of Qin Shi Huang, which can be arbitrarily fabricated into various complex shapes. In the shape of wood carving, it is impossible to achieve a very meticulous degree, and it is precisely the characteristics of wood that make Han Dynasty wood carving maintain a kind of atmosphere. We can appreciate their rich plastic arts and expressive language.
From the perspective of carving techniques, these wood carvings belong to three-dimensional circular carvings, and the craftsmen have rationally used relief and line carving techniques as a supplement to the wood carving form. Round carving, also known as six-sided carving, is a comprehensive carving of the entire component, from all aspects can enjoy its image, its three-dimensional sense is strong and meticulous, Wuwei Mozui Han tomb excavated animal group sculpture fully show this feature.
The art of Chinese wood carving crafts can be traced back to the Neolithic Age, when there were many embryonic crafts. 7,000 years ago, there were wood carvings with fish as the theme in the Hemudu cultural site, and wood carved birds were also unearthed in the Xinle culture of the same period. By the Warring States period, the wood carving process has been used by the Shang Dynasty for simple engraving in the pottery process and the engraving of the carved plate, the development of three-dimensional circular carving process, because at that time has begun to use wooden figurines as a custom of burial, so it is mainly based on character figurines, the theme is mostly trick music, samurai, etc., mostly popular in Chudi.
During the Qin and Han dynasties, under the influence of the southern wooden figurines, the phenomenon of wooden figurines was buried all over the country, but only the wooden figurines in the tombs in the northwest region were relatively well preserved, thanks to the dry climate environment in the northwest region. From these excavated wooden figurines, we can find the glory of the folk wood carving art of the Han Dynasty, and understand the rich agricultural and pastoral life and spiritual pursuit of the people in the Hexi area of the Han Dynasty from the side.
The majestic, concise and romantic Han Dynasty wood carving has pushed the Chinese wood carving art to a peak, showing the flourishing culture and art of the Han Dynasty and the romantic and unrestrained spirit of the times.
In the Han Dynasty, wood carving surged with the use of burial utensils
Why are there so many animal figurines buried with ming vessels in the Wuwei Mozuizi Han Tomb Group?
The ancient Chinese believed that after death, a person should still live exactly the same life as before he died, and that the slaves and wealth before death should be buried in the tomb for his own use in the underworld. Under this concept of "death is like life", the ruthless system of martyrdom emerged, and reached the peak of the Shang Dynasty in China. During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, slavery collapsed, feudalism was established in various countries, and the cruel custom of killing and martyrdom was also changed, and figurines began to replace living people and living creatures for burial, which was an important part of the Ming dynasty.
The Han Dynasty revered Confucianism and advocated the respect of ancestors and filial piety, so the practice of thick burial prevailed, and the use of Ming utensils increased unprecedentedly. At that time, lacquer and wood were replacing bronze as the new favorite of the times, so the use of wood carving and carving was surging. And this social demand, prompting the craftsmen at that time to take real-life animals as the prototype, carved out a vivid and lively animal wood carving.
These animal artifacts were constantly buried in the tomb, forming an amazing Han Dynasty "underground zoo".
Source: Wuwei Daily