Chinese Achievements During the Tang and Song Dynasties
A Great Cultural Era
Art and Architecture
Chinese artists during the Middle Ages painted on walls, ceramics, and silk, using brush pens, ink and watercolors.
They depicted religious themes and nature studies, especially of landscapes. A favorite landscape scene portrayed majestic mountains and seas against which humans appeared insignificant.
During the Tang Period lived the man who is often considered China’s outstanding painter, Wu Tao-hsuan.
Chinese architects planned cities and constructed impressive temples and vast palaces with beautiful gardens.
Chinese Gardens
Forbidden City of Ming Dynasty
Chinese Temples of the Song Dynasty
Literature
Chinese writers, encouraged by the invention of printing, produced extensive literary works:PoetryDramaProseThe prose dealt with such subjects as history, government, geography, architecture, medicine, commerce, and everyday life, as well as fiction. The Chinese prepared many dictionaries and encyclopedias.
Two Outstanding Poets
• Li Po, a master of words, created an imaginary world of lyric beauty.
• Tu Fu, more of a realist, depicted human suffering.
Inventions
• In the 6th century the Chinese invented gunpowder, which they first used for festive fireworks. By the 12th century they were employing gunpowder for military purposes, including bombs and rockets.
• Gunpowder spread west to Muslim areas and, then, to Europe. Gunpowder was the Turks’ secret weapon in their conquest of Constantinople.
Inventions
• In the 7th century the Chinese printed books from carved wooden blocks. China’s earliest known printed books, from the Tang and Song eras, are beautiful works of art.
In the 11th century, the Chinese evolved printing by moveable type.
Inventions-Shipbuilding and Navigation
• In the 11th century Chinese navigators determined direction from the magnetic needle enclosed in a mariner’s compass.
• Shipbuilding:
These advances, however, did not result from the methodical application of scientific principles. Despite their practical-mindedness,
the Chinese did not develop theories of science and logical methods of scientific research.
Achievements
• Engineering – Chinese engineers built roads, bridges, and city walls, dredged river channels, erected sea and river dikes, and expanded irrigation and canal systems. China’s waterways, extending over hundreds of miles, were known as the Grand Canal.
• Blast Furnace for Steel Using Bellows
Chinese Clock Tower
• Fire lance ad grenade repr.
in artwork in upper right.
