Animals take a great role in history. They were used as transportation, representation of status and power, friends, security and as many other purposes. At different times and in different cultures, animals were depicted and represented in various ways and forms through art, but they all conforms to the beliefs and culture at the time or place where it was made. From the size and features of one’s funerary offerings from the clearly distinguished world of Tang Dynasty, one’s status could be easily determined. The Standing Horse (China. Tang Dynasty, 8th century) is clear representation of the cultural beliefs at the period of Tang Dynasty.
As a funerary offering, the Standing Horse represents the very culture of distinctive social hierarchy existed then. Like the Egyptians, the afterlife of a person is especially important to Chinese. Hence, in order to ensure the continuity of their status in their afterlives, emperors’, members’ from the Imperial family and high ranking officials’ funerary offerings were bounded by rules regarding the size, height and other characteristics set by a special government department for the manufacture of funerary offerings. The features of the funerary offerings of the civilians range tremendously different from those of the emperor’s.
The large size of the Standing Horse reveals its place as the offerings to a member of the elite. From the size and features of one’s funerary offerings from the clearly distinguished world of Tang Dynasty, one’s status could be easily determined. As the afterlives took on a lot of importance to Chinese in the Tang Dynasty period, the Standing Horse is a life-like ceramic sculpture. In the Tang Dynasty, funerary offerings were depicted in a very realistic manner in order to ensure the deceased with the live they used to have when alive.
Other than representing one’s status, animals were also used in art to portray an empire’s power and strength. The Dying Lioness (Ashurbanipal’s palace, Nineveh, 645 B. C. ) from the Ancient Near East period represents the empire’s power by killing the queen of nature. The representation is simply shown through the subject, barely on the way how it was depicted. While killing the most powerful creature of nature, the Assyrian empire is displaying power to its enemies for intimidation and protection purposes.
Also, as the picture has shown, the Dying Lioness is dying in a struggling manner, in a position where it seems like it is calling for help, simply another way to depict the powerful empire of the Assyrians. The Standing Horse and the Dying Lioness are arts of animals from different cultures and periods where they both display one’s power or status. Whether for a person or an empire, whether the purposes of which are to strength one’s position or to ensure one’s afterlife or to intimidate its enemies, the representations of the respective animals here reflect the beliefs and culture values at the time period or place where it was made.
