Celestial Horses. Equestrian depictions in ancient China

The horses were a symbol of social status for the strong Chinese elite of all times and one of those most represented in the art of imperial China. Emblems of nobility, elegance, speed and power, have been enriched over time of supernatural values cloaked legendary accounts. Among the most famous of these myths are that of "Celestial Horses," extraordinary horses capable of carrying those who rode in the land of the immortals. On the occasion of the Year of the Horse, the Oriental Art Museum is a tribute to this creature that has had so much weight in the history of peoples with an exhibition devoted to it.
Through forty works from the collections of the museum from a private collection in Turin, the exhibition explores the importance of the figure of the horse in art and culture of ancient China with spectacular funerary statues in the round in the period from the Han dynasty (206 BC - 220 AD) to the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD), archaic elements of harnesses and wagons (XI cent. BC - II century AD.), reliefs and painted pottery (II cent. BC - I century AD.). It is largely of terracotta sculptures painted and glazed, where the horses appear alone or in a dynamic relationship with the knight, colorful and enriched with details depending on the function that the image was to evoke and make a living.
The exhibition is divided into seven sections that correspond to different themes: war, commerce, leisure, until the evolution of forms between the Han and Tang. There are many aspects of history and culture that are interwoven in this itinerary. For example, as of the end of the fourth century BC, the adoption of the cavalry, the foundation for the establishment of the Empire; the opening of the "Silk Road" under the Han dynasty (206 BC - 220 AD), which had among its main engines research in the western regions of horses bigger and more powerful; the spread of a sport such as pole in the seventh and eighth centuries; up techniques and the design plastic, ranging from powerful stylization of the Han era idealized naturalism of Tang, passing through the elegance almost pictorial art "medieval" in the sixth century.

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