Samuel De Spuches - The Curtain to a Great Mystery: The City Walls
The Curtains to a Great Mystery: The City Walls.
The Qingming Shanghe tu scroll represents a structured society, which much like today is visibly separated. Broadly speaking, there’s a clear representation of the lower, middle and upper classes of Chinese society between the 14th and 19th centuries. Starting from the right, there's the countryside, which transitions into the city before getting to the royal palace. In reality, and graphically, these three sections are divided by big walls. We will be looking at the city walls, trying to answer questions like how they were built, what significance they held and so on.
If we dive into the painting, and imagine we’re one of the people depicted, we would feel a surge of energy and life when approaching the city walls. Many people are walking into the city, and doing all sorts of things, mostly for work. While boats are sailing by in the river next to us, we would be presented with a great mystery: what lies behind these great walls?
The walls are immense, with geometric shapes and a sense of impenetrability. They are painted light blue, and have some plants growing in between the cracks of the big rocks they are made of. They have two grand entrances with round arches, one for pedestrians and one for boats. Additionally, there’s a watch tower on top, painted red and in typical Chinese architecture style.
Starting in the 14th century, and thanks to the Ming dynasty, there was a surge in city wall construction. In fact, starting in the 1st century up to the 14th, only 125 city walls were built in China. During the Ming dynasty (1368 - 1644 A.D.), 1493 city walls were built. (Xue et. al, 2019). According to the previously mentioned source, this surge in construction was a cultural phenomenon brought about by the Ming, and thanks to the collaboration of the central government with local ones, most cities adopted masonry to protect themselves.
In the scroll, we can see plants growing out of the wall. At a first glance, they might look aesthetically pleasing. Not only did the real ancient cities have these plants, but they posed a real problem for the maintenance of the wall. Studies of the city walls of Nanjing, the city where the Ming dynasty established its capital, found that the effects of these plants were drastic. An informed guess would make me say that this is what we’re seeing here. It could be that since city walls were such a show of power and technology, they’re maintenance was considered important. Any sign of decay would in turn show a sign of weakness from the Ming, so it makes sense that the presence of plants as a threat to it has remained in paintings. These were very adaptable plants, capable of surviving a hostile environment of little water and space. Their roots secrete acidic materials that allow them to obtain nutritive salts from rocks, and at the same time cause their deterioration. As the plants grow, their roots look for more space and can actually crack the rocks and cause them to collapse. This being said, there are plants that can have a positive effect on city walls. The Liana species for example is beautiful, and has ecological benefits. (Wang et. al, 2012)
The city walls strike a balance between practicality and aesthetics. They are colored in a simple manner because they’re main purpose is to protect the city. The imperial palace walls on the other hand are painted more colorfully, they aren’t as high or as thick, and they don’t have any plants growing on them. They’re purpose was to veil the mysteries of the elite to the common people, thus provoking envy and a complex of inferiority. The city walls on the other hand protect everyone and show military power to outsiders. It didn’t matter as much if they were dirtied by plants.
Going back to our imagination with knowledge of the wall before us, we are ready to unveil the mystery and step into the city. As the architectural beauty, the wealth and the vibrant movement of the people in the city is before our eyes, it’s easy to understand why all of that was worth protecting with a big wall that has a beauty of its own.
Bibliography
Journal Article: Wang, Xiaomei, Xiaoying Qin, Hao Shi, Jingwen Liu, Haili Qian, Li Wan, and Yalan Liu. 2012. "Investigation of Vegetation Resources on City Wall of the Ming Dynasty in Nanjing City and Ecological Evaluation of the City Wall." Journal of Landscape Research 4 (11): 37-39,42.
Journal Article: Xue, Qiaofeng, Xiaobin Jin, Yinong Cheng, Xuhong Yang, Xin Jia, and Yinkang Zhou. 2019. "The Historical Process of the Masonry City Walls Construction in China during 1st to 17th Centuries AD." PloS One 14 (3):
Journal Article: Qiu, Yanning, Bin J. Chen, W., Yanjuan Song, Zheng Y. Huang, X., Li Wan, Cheng Huang, Maosong Liu, and Chi Xu. 2016. "Composition, Distribution and Habitat Effects of Vascular Plants on the Vertical Surfaces of an Ancient City Wall." Urban Ecosystems 19 (2): 939-948. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11252-016-0528-2. ]