Age of T'ang

To summon up the past glories of one of mankind's most golden ages, the most important exhibit of T'ang Dynasty art treasures ever to be seen outside of China opened this week at the Los Angeles County Museum. To assemble the 385 irreplaceable art objects, ranging all the way from Buddhist sculpture to fragments of 1,200-year-old silk, the Los Angeles museum tapped the resources of more than 88 museums, dealers and collectors here and abroad, including the famed oriental collection of Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum of Archaeology (see color pages). The total effect was as bedazzling as the golden phoenix with which T'ang emperors used to adorn the crowns of their empresses.

China's mighty T'ang Dynasty ruled China from the 7th to the 10th century A.D. Its invincible generals vanquished the Tartars and subdued the Turkish tribes to open the camel caravan route across central Asia. Chinese silk merchants returned bringing exotic wares and gifts--fiery Bactrian stallions and two-humped camels, spices from Arabia, rich embroideries from Persia. The capital city of Ch'ang-an was thrown open to foreign traders, to Buddhists, Christians, Manichaeans and Jews alike. All that was rich and rare T'ang artists converted to bear their own vigorous stamp.

It was a great age of religious fervor which marked not only the high point of Buddhist art, but also of court painters and poets still ranked among China's greatest. Among the period's leading figures : the Empress Wu, who rivals Britain's first Elizabeth for energy and cunning; the "Illustrious Sovereign" Hsuan-Tsung, scholar and educator, whose tragic love for the beauteous Yang Kuei Fei ended when the army, incensed at her extravagance, forced her to be hanged from a pear tree with a silken scarf.

Lady in Ceremonial Dress (see cut), now owned by Cinemactress Claudette Colbert, gives some idea of the high style in the fine silk and brocade worn by the court beauties. Unfortunately, much of what was most perishable, including the scroll paintings and murals, has disappeared, and today is known only through third-or fourth-hand copies. That such might be their fate the T'ang artists may even have suspected. The legend of Artist Wu Tao-tzu indicates at least a premonition. After Wu had finished his greatest mural, he stepped through a secret door as his painting vanished before the eyes of the astonished Emperor. Neither Wu nor his mural was ever seen again.

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