ART REVIEW : Tomb Reliefs Tell Engaging ‘Stories’ From Han Dynasty

Chinese art tends to imprint itself on the American consciousness in impressive assemblies. Emperor Qin’s underground army of life-size terra-cotta soldiers! The Forbidden City’s fabulous collections! The monumental sculptures on the road to the Ming Tombs!

China’s daunting size, its historical grandeur and a long period of insularity all contribute to this perception, but bit by bit--and exhibition by exhibition--we are becoming familiar with a smaller-scale, less spectacular but no less fascinating China.

“The Quest for Eternity,” at the County Museum of Art last fall, provided a historical overview of ceramic funerary sculpture, much of it modest in size. Now UCLA’s Frederick S. Wight Art Gallery presents “Stories From China’s Past” (to May 15), a relatively small but unusually engaging show of Han Dynasty (206 BC to AD 220) tomb reliefs and archeological objects from Sichuan province.

The 100 objects on display--ceramic and metal sculpture, pottery reliefs and rubbings, plus a 6-foot model of a tomb--remind us of the cultural riches that lie under modern China. If the ancient Chinese hadn’t been compelled to take artistic approximations of life to their graves and if they hadn’t insisted upon elaborate burials, we probably would know much less than we do about their everyday activities and cultural history.

In Sichuan four kinds of tombs have preserved Han treasures: simple pits, caves in cliffs, multichambered tombs and similar structures built of stone and brick. The model on view depicts Yangzishan Tomb No. 1, an example of the fourth type. This long, vaulted construction, excavated in the ‘50s, consists of an antechamber, a main hall used for offerings and ceremonies and a rear burial chamber.

Shown with a few actual relief panels and rubbings from the tomb, this display is almost as good as being there, though it only shows a fraction of the lavishly decorated interior. With its pictorial parade of officials in carriages, farming, hunting, salt-mining, feasts and entertainment, this tomb is considered one of the most important discoveries in Sichuan.

Throughout the show (organized by the Chinese Culture Center of San Francisco in cooperation with the Sichuan Cultural Department in China), gray tomb tiles and black rubbings are grouped according to themes of immortality, intimacy, transportation, entertainment, city scenes, architecture and daily activities. We see, for example, musicians on horseback, farmers engaged in weeding and planting, a landlord collecting rent. Horses with long curved necks and a lilting gait transport aristocrats in graceful, canopied carriages. The buildings reproduced include an armory, a courtyard with a tower and a gateway flanked by imposing pillars.

This sophisticated society and thriving economy in Southwest China is portrayed quite realistically. Space in the scenes doesn’t conform to Western notions of perspective but opens up through multiple viewpoints.

The show’s small but striking centerpiece consists of free-standing clay sculpture: a horse, four figures and two buildings. By far the most enchanting is a 26-inch-tall pottery “Storyteller/Entertainer” who beats a little drum, sticks out his tongue and shoves his compact body into a mass of angles. This caricatured Chinese court jester, a bundle of expressive form, is accompanied by two relatively sedate musicians and a woman holding a mirror. Smaller variations of these characters, tucked away in a pottery model of a two-story house, are all set to entertain the emperor and his subjects.