Abstract
The period from the Eastern Zhou Dynasty to the Qin Dynasty (770~206 BC) had been the period of gradual formation of Chinese image science and technology.
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- 1.
“Records of History · Qin Shihuang's Biography” by Sima Qian, records that the first emperor of the Qin Dynsaty made five tours after unifying six states in 221 BC. During these five tours, he erected huge tablets with inscriptions at seven places four times to record his achievements. There seven places are respectively called “Yishan Stone-Carving” (219 BC), “Taishan Stone-Carving” (219 BC), “Langye Stone-Carving” (219 BC), “Zhifu Stone-Carving” (218 BC), “Dongguan Stone-Carving” (218 BC), “Jieshi Stone-Carving” (215 BC) and “Huiji Stone-Carving” (210 BC). Most of these original stone-carvings at seven places were damaged without existence. According to textual research, there are only remains of “Taishan Stone-Carving” and “Langxie Stone-Carving” belonging to original stone-carvings of the Qin Dynasty. Among them, “Mount Tai Stone-Carving” has only 10 Chinese characters as the imperial edict of the second generation, also known as “Mount Tai Cross”, which is now preserved in Dai Temple at the foot of Mount Tai. “Langxie Carving Stone” has also been mostly peeled off, with only 12 and a half lines consisting of 84 Chinese characters, the stone-carving which is now preserved in the History Museum of China. Six of the seven stone carvings in the Qin Dynasty are recorded in the full text of “Records of History ·Qin Shihuang's Biography”. Yishan Stone-Carving is the only with fame but without inscription. Most of the existing Yishan Stone-Carvings in the following generation are based on the copies of Xu Xaun in the Southern Tang Dynasty. Most of the seven stone carvings in the Qin Dynasty have copied rubbings handed down from ancient times, but the content of inscription on these seven stone-carvings is slightly different from what is recorded in “Records of the History”. It is said that all of them were written by Lli Si, the prime minister of the Qing Dynasty. They are representative works in seal characters of the Qin Dynasty as standards and historical witness to the unified writing in the Qin Dynasty.
- 2.
“Han Feizi On Top Left”: “It took a guest three years to have painted bamboo slips for Mr. Zhou. Coming to see it, Zhou was furious since these slips looked painted by oil-paints. The painter said: ‘Build a high wall, chisel a window of eight feet, put bamboo slips on the window-sill and look at them when the sun starts to rise.’ Mr. Zhou did accordingly. He saw that all shapes painted on bamboo slips had turned into forms of dragons, snakes, birds, chariots and horses, with all things shown. Mr. Zhou was very delighted. The painting was not subtle and difficult, but its use and patterns were completely identical to bamboo slips decorated by oil paints.”
- 3.
“Rites of Zhou Dynasty·Examination of Handi-craftsmanship”: “Painting is marked by five colors. Green stands for east, red denotes south, white refers to west and black symbolizes north. Dark-black stands for the sky and yellow denotes the earth. Green and white proceed in order and the same is truth with red and black as well as dark-black with yellow. The combination of green with red is called Wen (text). The integration of red with white is termed Zhang (article). The combination of white with black is called Pu. The integration of black with green is termed Ba. The presence of five colors is called **u (embroidery).
- 4.
“Rites of the Zhou Dynasty · Examination of Handi-craftsmanship”: “When building the capital-city, craftsman would hang a mesuring-rope to ensure the level of land and observe shadows to ensure the uprightness of pillars, i.e. use a sundial to observe their shadows to be certain of shadows at sunrise and sunset while getting reference from noon-time shadows and the location of the Polaris at night, so as to set the time of a day.”
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Han, C. (2021). The Formation Stage of Image Science and Technology. In: A Brief History of Image Science and Technology in China. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-6922-1_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-6922-1_2
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