From Temple to Tomb: Ancient Chinese Art and Religion in Transition

By exploring the shift of ancestral worship centers in ancient China and its impact on art, the author argues that the genealogical/political structure of the Three Dynasties found its religious form in temple worship; however, following the decline of this system during the Eastern Zhou and the Qin, the tomb of an individual increased in importance. This process culminated during the Eastern Han: Problems in dynastic succession forced the Eastern Han rulers to abandon temple ceremonies and transfer them to graveyards. But this new system was again renounced by the following Wei dynasty, and many funerary structures were destroyed in an “iconoclastic” movement. The author contends that this complex development in religion strongly influenced and even governed the course of ancient Chinese art: Corresponding to the shift in religious center, the tomb assumed new symbolic imagery, and pictorial funerary art replaced ritual vessels to become the dominant artistic genre of early imperial China.