Chinese Art

China has an art form called papercuts that does just that. Chinese civilization
began more than 4000 years ago. The earliest art forms would use rock and
stone for art because they didn’t know to use metal yet. Later there was the
Bronze Age, Stone Age, Neolithic or New Stone Age. There were many different
dynasties like the T’ang Dynasty, Zhou Dynasty, and the Qin Dynasty were a few
dynasties.

Influence

Chinese arts are influenced by three major religions: Confucianism, Taoism, and
Buddhism. Another major influence was nature. The three major kinds of subject
they liked to paint were birds, flowers, and landscapes from the countryside. All
the religions stress love for nature. All landscape painters tried to get a feeling of
the human spirit and the strength of the wind, water, mist and mountains.
Painting became an art form more than 2000 years ago then influenced the later
painters.

Art Forms

Chinese arts come in many different forms such as: painting, folk arts, silk,
calligraphy, pottery, sculpture, metal arts and papercuts. Chinese papercuts were
created around the first century in A.D. The Chinese invented paper, which was
very important for papercuts. It first started in the Tang Dynasty. People then
would hang them up to decorate windows, houses, clothes and even ladies hair.
In these thin and fragile papercuts, they would create animals, aerobics, Buddha,
opera faces and other subjects.

Sculptures were made of many different materials: stone, jade, lacquer, wood,
metal, clay, etc. They weren’t only for admiring but they were used as everyday
items like a wine bucket, mirrors, pottery, and pendants. A famous example is the
sculptures of the Terra cotta warriors. They were buried with the body of an
emperor to protect the emperor in his afterlife.

Paintings became an art form more than 2000 years ago. The Chinese painted
emperors, landscape and zodiac animals, flowers, ladies, and birds. Chinese
have three thousand years of history of painting starting from 600 A.D T’ang
dynasty to the 20th century

Process and Material

The Chinese used many materials such as medal, bronze, lacquer, jade, clay,
silk, and cloth. They made the most flexible of material…paper. Chinese people
used jade to make mirrors and clay and stone to make pottery and statues. At a
ceremony they would use bronze to make wine vessels in animal shapes. The
process of a statue in a human figure is molded separately. The front and back
has to be made split. Then the two sides would be put together.

Subject and Style

Chinese arts cover a very broad range of subjects. In papercuts they like to cut
Buddhas, opera faces, animals, flowers, children, and aerobics. Sometimes in
their painting they would use black and white, having one object with each color.
One of their favorite subjects was nature. They believed that the spirit of nature
gives life to everything, so if painting nature the painter must capture the feeling
of nature. Zodiac animals, landscapes, opera faces, figure painting, mountains,
and cranes, which were a symbol for long life, were popular subjects for their
paintings. Emperors and their court was an another important subject for
painting.

Chinese art began more than 4000 years ago. We still appreciate the hard work
artists did back then. We visit the museum to look at the magnificent artwork
done long ago. The Chinese culture hasn’t changed much, but their art is prized
in museums around the world.
Basant
Basant is short for Basant Panchami a Hindu festival in honor of Saraswati, the
goddess of knowledge, music and art. It is celebrated every year on the fifth
day (Panchami) of the Hindu month Magh (January-February), the first day
of spring. Though originally a Hindu festival, it is now celebrated by people
of all religious backgrounds; specially in the Northern India and province of
Punjab in Pakistan.
Origin of Basant

In sanskrit Vasant (Basant) means spring and Panchami is the fifth day of the
fortnight of waxing moon (Shukla Paksha) in the Hindu month of Magh, January-
February of English calendar.

In the Vedas the day of Basant Panchami is dedicated to Goddess Sarasvati. It is

not a national holiday in India but the schools are closed and the students
participate in decoration and arrangement of the worship place. A few weeks
before the celebration, schools become active in organizing various annual
competitions of music, debate, sports and other activities. Prizes are distributed
on the day of Basant Panchami. Many schools organize cultural activities in the
evening of the Saraswati Puja day when parents and other community members
attend the functions to encourage the children.Sarasvati is the goddess of
learning. Sarasvati bestows the greatest wealth to humanity, the wealth of
knowledge.

In the Vedas the prayer for Sarasvati depicts her as a white lady in white dress
bedecked with white flowers and white pearls, sitting on a white lotus, which is
blooming in a wide stretch of water. She holds Veena, a string-instrument, like
Sitar, for playing music. The prayer finally concludes, "Oh Mother Sarasvati
remove the darkness (ignorance) of my mind and bless me with the eternal
knowledge." The Vedas describe Sarasvati as a water deity, goddess of a river of
the same name. According to popular belief Sarasvati, originating from the
Himalayas, flowed southeast, ultimately meeting the Ganges at Prayag, near the
confluence of Yamuna. Hence the place is called Triveni. In due time this course
of water petered away.

The mythological history of Sarasvati associates her with the holy rituals
performed on the banks of the river Sarasvati. She is worshipped as a goddess
of speech, attributed to the formation of Vach (words), invention of Sanskrit
language and composition of hymns.

Basant in Pakistan

In the pre-partitioned Punjab, Hindus of Punjab--especially Lahore--celebrated

the Basant Panchami by flying kites. Muslims of Punjab at that time did not
celebrate the Basant with the same enthusiasm, as it was considered as a Hindu
festival, though younger Muslim folk did participate in kite flying as an event. At
the time of partition in 1947, population of Lahore city was almost equally divided
between Muslims (52%) and Hindus/Sikh (48%). By the end of September 1947,
almost all the Hindus had left West Punjab/Lahore for India, but their tradition of
Basant remained; and even today Lahore take pride in Basant and fly kites from
their rooftops with the same enthusiasm.

Lahori Basant

Being the historic capital of Punjab there is no other place where Basant is
celebrated with as much vigour and enthusiasm as the ancient city of Lahore.
Although traditionally it was a festivel confined to the old-walled city it has spread
all through out the city. It was for many years officially backed by the government
and sponsored by multinational corporations. Although Basant "travels"
throughout Pakistani Punjab it is Lahore which made it popular not only in
Pakistan but all over the world as the largest kite festival.

Basant and Sufi Culture

Sufis are credited for bringing the festival into the Muslim pantheon in the India
subcontinent. By the Mughal period, Basant was a popular festival at the major
Sufi shrines. We have, for example, mentions of Nizam Auliya ki Basant, Khwaja
Bakhtiar Kaki ki Basant, Khusrau ki Basant; festivals arranged around the shrines
of these various sufi saints. Khusrau, the famous sufi-poet of the thirteenth
century, even composed verses on Basant.

Celebrate basant today, O bride, Celebrate basant today Bring out your
lotions,and decorate your long hair Oh why are you the servant of sleep? Even
your fate is wide awake, Celebrate basant today O high lady with high looks,
when the king looks at you, you meet his eyes, O Bride, Celebrate basant today
[bad translation

Another historic account is given in the book "Punjab Under the Later Mughals."
According to this book, when Zakariya Khan (1707-1759) was the governor of
Punjab, a Hindu of Sialkot, by the name of Hakeekat Rai Bakhmal Puri spoke
words of disrespect for the Prophet Muhammad and his daughter Fatima due to
teasing by Muslim boys. He was arrested and sent to Lahore to await trial. The
court, gave him capital punishment. The Hindu population was stirred to request
Zakariya Khan to lift the death sentence given to Hakeekat Rai but he did not
accede to their request. Eventually the death penalty was carried out and the
entire Hindu population went into mourning.

As a tribute to the memory of this child, a prosperous Hindu, Kalu Ram initiated
the Basant 'mela' in (Marrhi) Kot Khwaja Saeed (Khoje Shahi) in Lahore. (This
place is now known as Baway di marrhi.) It is the last stop on the route of Wagon
no. 60 from Bhati Gate. Dr. B.S. Nijjar states on Page no. 279 of his book that the
Basant 'mela' is celebrated in memory of Hakeekat Rai.

BASANT

Basant, the Festival of Kites, is said to be originated in India. It has been cursed
as an Indian hobby, but in the cities of Punjab such as Lahore, Faisalabad and
Rawalpindi, Basant is the time when skies are filled with kites of all colours.
It is during spring when the trees are in blooming, and everyone in the city is
carried away by the light-hearted beauty of the kites. Capricious breezes blow
and the kite makers get busy bending splints of bamboo and gluing on brightly
coloured tissue paper to fashion kites that people will buy to fly over the city.
Everyone takes up residence on the roofs to watch and participate as the spring
winds whip brilliantly coloured diamond-shaped paper kites into the air in such
quantities that you can barely see the sky above. Against that deep, cool blue
there will be thousands of kites, criss-crossing like a swarm of crazed butterflies.

Boys of all ages prepare for the event by buying and making kites of tissue and
sticks, as well as by craftily applying bits of ground glass to their own kite strings
in order to cut the opponent's string and reign victorious over any and all kites in
reach of their own.

The kites of Basant are warriors, glorious opponents who battle for control of all
they survey. Once the kite is air-borne, it is an open invitation to a severing
contest - the painch. The kite's weapon is its maanjha - its wickedly armoured
string, which the kite flyers of Basant spend many days preparing, and the
treatment of which is an art in itself. The string is coated in a mixture of rice paste
and ground glass to strengthen it and render it capable of slashing through a
hapless opponent's maanjha.

The kites of Basant are beautiful even in combat. They must fly at a considerable
height so that the string can harmonise with the flow and direction of the wind. To
attack, kite flyers must manoeuvre their kites in a hawk-like swoop across the
sky, cross their opponent's string and move swiftly up and down to sever the rival
string at its weakest point. There are many more techniques for manoeuvring and
combating, each deadly, yet requiring skilful and quickness of hands and fingers.

Today, the Basant is considered a traditional and cultural event. Kite industry,
eventhough small yet rapidly expanding has brought engineering developments
in this art. The string, or the maanjha, is made of very precise quantities of
chemicals, which are exported, to India and similarly, Indian maanjha is imported
due to its unique ingredients.