The terracotta warriors built to protect China’s emperor Qin Shi Huangdi on his way to the afterlife are believed to have been inspired by the art of the ancient Greeks.
The terracotta warriors built to protect China’s emperor Qin Shi Huangdi on his way to the afterlife are believed to have been inspired by the art of the ancient Greeks.
Numbering around 8 thousand, the life-size figures were made and buried approximately 22 hundred years ago, at the time of the emperor’s reign.
The recent translation of ancient Chinese texts has led a University of London professor to believe that many of the key stylistic traits employed in their making were borrowed from contemporaneous Greek practices.
The writing, he says, describes grand scale works displayed in the far western reaches of the country and mentions that upon seeing them the Chinese emperor had duplicates created for outside his palace.
According to the professor that’s likely when the ruler also started production on the massive army that was installed below ground.
As life-size works didn’t exist in China prior to the emperor’s collection, outside influence is suspected.
Greece is the likely source, as its known that many Asian kingdoms had become exposed to Western aesthetics via the campaigns of Alexander the Great.
