Resources

Watch artist Kong Pak-yu demonstrate brushpainting at the Asian Art Museum.

The Qin empire(221–206 BCE) of China lasted only fifteen years, but the rise of the state of Qin began several decades earlier, and Qin’s defeat of all the other rival states brought a definative conclusion to the Warring States period (475–221 BCE). Ying Zheng, the future First Emperor, ascended the throne of Qin in the year 247 BCE at age thirteen, and only a few years later launched a series of military campaigns against the neighboring states of Han, Zhou, Wei, Chu, Yan and Qi, defeating the last in 221 BCE, ‘as a silkworm devours a mulberry leaf ’ according to the Han historian Sima Qian.

Islam is one of the world’s major religions. It shares with Judaism and Christianity a belief in a single god. The Arabic name for God is Allah. The word Islam means “surrender (to God).” The followers of Islam are called Muslims, which in Arabic means “one who surrenders to God.”

We will refer to Ancient China as the time between the Neolithic period (ca. 6,000‒ ca. 1750 BCE) and the Han dynasty (206 BCE‒ 220 CE), which is roughly equivalent to the period of the Roman Empire in the West. This is the formative stage of Chinese civilization. During this time, what we now call China developed from a collection of isolated cultural communities to a set of organized states which eventually coalesced around the idea of a single unified state, and then expanded to include contact with other civilizations.

Camel, approx. 690–750. China, Shaanxi or Henan province. Tang dynasty (618–906). Glazed earthenware. The Avery Brundage Collection, B60S95.

Learn about the Japanese artist Utagawa (Ando) Hiroshige (1797–1858).

Learn about the Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849).

Archery practice, by Shibayama Hirotoyo (1673–1723). Japan. Edo period (1615–1868). Hanging scroll, ink and colors on silk. The Avery Brundage Collecton, B65D2.

Buddhism was officially transmitted to Japan in 552, when the monarch of the Korean kingdom of Baekje sent a mission to Japan with gifts, including an image of the Buddha, several ritual objects, and sacred texts. Buddhism’s journey from India to China, Korea, and Japan had taken about a thousand years.