IDST 2310 The Fine and Applied Arts in Civilization

Art and the State: China

Tombs, Walls, and Forbidden Cities

by Dr. Deborah Vess

Professor of History and Interdisciplinary Studies

Georgia College & State University

The use of art as propaganda for the state in nowhere more clearly seen than in China. We shall begin our journey with the life and career of the first emperor in Chinese history, Shi Huang Ti. Shi Huang Ti was born the illegitimate son of an official in one of the Chinese provinces. The name "Shi Huang Ti" has special meaning. The word "Shi" means "first," and the words "Huang Ti" refer to one of the heavenly emperors of Chinese mythology, whose contribution to Chinese culture was the gift of fire and his twenty-five sons, who became the basis of the feudal families of Chou Dynasty. Shi Huang Ti's gift to China was the unification of the warring provinces of China. In his zeal to create a centralized China, Ch'in Shi Huang Ti also standardized coinage, other measures and weights, and Chinese calligraphy. His contribution is still felt in China today; despite the fact that China is the most populous nation on earth, there are not nearly as many Chinese dialects as one would expect given this number of people and ethnicities, and there are only about 400 last names. These are but a few of the ways that Shi Huang Ti, who took power in 221 B.C.E., helped to mold the China of today.

When Shi Huang Ti united the provinces, he tore down the internal walls which divided them, and erected one wall around his new China. This Wall is now known as the Great Wall of China. The Wall is about thirty-five feet high and wide enough for two or three chariots to ride side by side.

You can get some idea of the width of the wall from this photo. Photo by Dr. Vess

Most of what can be seen of the Great Wall today was built during the Ming Dynasty, which came to power in the fourteenth century C.E. The wall was constructed primarily through the rammed earth technique, where two walls are filled with earth. Some of the older sections of the wall are only earth, which is still packed so tightly that one can barely chisel it out. One can see from the illustration that the Wall was built on very mountainous terrain. It extends for about 1500 li (approximately 4500 miles) along the northern borders of China. The Wall is often shrouded in a beautiful, white mist; it is also shrouded in mystique and other legends. The Wall symbolizes China, although many contemporary Chinese cannot understand the fascination westerners have with the wall.

It is still difficult to imagine how the workers were able to achieve such an enormous feat, and the Chinese have many legends about its construction. According to legend, Shi Huang Ti had a magic bludgeon which was able to knock down entire mountains with a single blow. He also had a magic stallion who reared up and pawed the earth at strategic points. Here, the watchtowers were constructed. Thousands of soldiers once stood guard here on the frontiers of China. The towers were built only as far away from one another as a smoke signal could travel.

There are also many legends about why the Wall was built. Some say that the Chinese believed that evil spirits could only travel in a straight line, and so the Wall was built to keep out the spirits. Others believe the Wall was constructed to keep out the Huns, who terrorized the Chinese frontiers during this period. If that is why the Wall was built, it is one of the most unsuccessful structures in history, as it never succeeded at keeping invaders out. China is the only culture which has attempted to literally Wall itself in, and the Wall is more of a symbol that divided China from the rest of the world than an effective barrier. One other hypothesis has been given for the construction of the Wall; it is argued that once Shi Huang Ti had won his victory over the other Chinese provinces, there was nothing to keep his army busy, and so they were put to work on the Wall. Whatever the historic reasons and legends about the building of the Wall, its construction reflects a monumental feat of engineering, and required massive use of slave labor.

A watchtower along the Great Wall. Photograph by Dr. Vess.

Shi Huang Ti departed from his predecessors in many ways, not the least of which was the implementation of a new philosophy of virtue and of law, Legalism. According to the doctrines of the Legalists, very harsh punishments for infractions of the law were necessary in order to compel the population to respect the emperor's authority and to obey the law. The Legalists did not believe that people would obey the law without some sort of external force present.

One of the punishments for breaking laws was to be sent to work on the Great Wall, as the difficult conditions under which the laborers worked was in essence a death sentence. According to legends, when the husband of a young woman was sent to work on the wall, she was worried about his welfare in the cold and harsh conditions. She prepared for him warm clothes and a basket of food and went to visit him. When she arrived, she found him already dead, and wept so profusely that the Wall itself melted away, revealing his bones in the Wall as well as those of many others. According to legend, there are more dead Chinese in the Wall than there are living Chinese. The young woman took the bones of her husband to the cost, where her spirit and that of her husband can still be seen today as boulders off the coast of China. This story is an extremely important indicator of just how hated Shi Huang Ti was. Traditionally, women in China were subservient to men and had little rights. The fact that a woman's tears could literally bring down the Great Wall, one of the most potent symbols of Shi Huang Ti's brutal repression, is very telling indeed and foreshadowed his quick demise. To further explore the roles of women in China in antiquity and in our own times, you may go to Dr. Vess's presentation Women Hold Up Half the Sky: Women's Issues in Modern China.

The brutal treatment of workers on the Great Wall is but one of many harsh punishments during the Legalist era. Han Fei was one of the most important Legalists of this era; please further explore his statement of the Legalist philosophy of law and of government by entering Dr. Vess's interactive module on the Chinese Schools of Thought. You will need a 3 1/2 inch floppy disk, formatted for IBM. You will also have to tell your browser when asked to operate in trusting mode to allow the program to write your information to the floppy. In addition, if you do not already have Shockwave installed on your machine, you will need to download it from Macomedia. When the module comes up, click on the menu button on the top left and then click on Legalism.

The philosophy of Legalism departed radically from Confucianism, which had dominated Chinese thought before the reign of Shi Huang Ti. Please enter once again Dr. Vess's interactive module on the Chinese Schools of Thought and explore the material and primary sources on Confucianism. You will need a 3 1/2 inch floppy disk, formatted for IBM. You may also have to tell your browser when asked to operate in trusting mode to allow the program to write your information to the floppy.

Continue to next page in Art and the State: China (Confucianism and Legalism)

copyright © Dr. Deborah Vess 1998-2001, Georgia College & State University and the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia. All rights reserved. Rights to chapters authored by contributing faculty members reserved to Georgia College & State University, to the Interdisciplinary Studies Program at GC&SU, and to the individual faculty authors.