This concept covers the periodization framework of Chinese dynastic history and the role of the Han dynasty as a major consolidating imperial era comparable in scale and power to ancient Rome, during which Confucianism became the official state ideology and art shifted from an exclusively tomb/ancestral (mythocentric) focus toward also representing court life. It also introduces the theory of symbolic material meaning, in which a material's physical properties (e.g., jade's luster, translucency, durability) are read as expressions of abstract moral virtues. This belongs to Chinese art history and its intersection with dynastic political history and Confucian/Taoist philosophy.
This concept covers the periodization framework of Chinese dynastic history and the role of the Han dynasty as a major consolidating imperial era comparable in scale and power to ancient Rome, during…