BOB VANASSEN ART 101/ELLIS THIRD SHORT ESSAY March 10, 2018 ART ANALYSIS/CRITICISM-THIRD SHORT ESSAY THE EMPEROR’S TOMB INTRODUCTION: Although there were a number of other art works that I found of interest, in particular works of the building architects, I was fascinated by the sheer size and detail of the tomb of Emperor Qin Shi Huang (fig 12-12, page 282 of “A World of Art”) which incidentally gives a slightly different spelling than all the other sources I investigated. The Emperor’s tomb is a huge assortment of various full-size terra cotta clay soldiers encompassing an area of 20,000 square meters (215,300 square feet). BACKGROUND: Qin Shi Huang was born in the year 259 B.C, the first son of the king of Qin, one of the six independent kingdoms within China. He ascended to the throne at the age of thirteen in 246 B.C. Soon after, construction work on his mausoleum was started. Although the kingdoms had been warring for over 200 years, Shi Huang through military strength and strategy was able to conquer the other kingdoms and unify them under his command. He then proclaimed himself the first emperor of China in the year 221 B.C. Under his rule the Great Wall was built, a single code of law was established, and a single written language was implemented. (Sayre) It was after the warring stopped that full-scale construction …show more content…
How do you critique a project that encompasses over 200,000 square feet and over 8,000 individual life size clay soldiers, not to mention all the other hundreds of artifacts and figurines that comprise this whole package known as the tomb of the emperor? I have no idea except to state that to think back to the time period of 200 B.C. and the manpower, tools, supplies and infrastructure required, not to mention food and bedding and the management with singular focus and I find this very impressive and I imagine so do many others as it is listed as a World Heritage