During the period of turbulence following the downfall of the Han dynasty, amounting to around 360 years, a new element was added to long-standing Chinese ideologies—Buddhism. This led to something of a return to religious motifs in design and to a revival of concepts of God or of a supreme being. Alongside ascendant Buddhism, Taoism grew at the expense of Confucianism. But this was also a period of interest in aesthetics and indulgence, in large part as a reaction to sometimes violent political conflict. An emphasis on beauty particularly emerged in thinking about art, with important treatises advising on the importance of capturing the soul and driving forces of subjects through the representation of their external form.

Authors and Affiliations

1. School of Fine Arts, Shanghai Normal University, Shanghai, China

   Qi Shao

2. School of Design, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China

   Xiaojing Wen

3. Department of Geography, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK

   Paul White

Corresponding author

Correspondence toQi Shao.

Reprints and permissions

© 2022 Shanghai Bookstore Publishing House

Policies and ethics