China

About

Chinese art has one of the longest continuous records in the world. Shang dynasty casters made ritual bronze vessels covered with mask-like taotie designs, and the First Emperor was buried in the 3rd century BC with an army of life-size terracotta soldiers. Potters perfected porcelain, and Jingdezhen's blue-and-white wares travelled across Asia and Europe from the 14th century.

Brush and ink held the highest status. Song dynasty painters such as Fan Kuan and Xu Daoning built towering, layered landscapes, while later scholar-artists valued personal expression: Zhao Mengfu revived older styles in the Yuan, Dong Qichang theorised painting's lineages in the late Ming, and Bada Shanren painted fish and birds with glaring eyes after the Ming fell. Since the late 1970s, artists including Cai Guo-Qiang, with his gunpowder drawings, and Ai Weiwei have worked on a global stage.