Answer to Question 1
Responses will vary depending on the selection of artwork. Japanese culture comes into clearer focus during the first centuries of our era. Cylindrically shaped terra-cotta figures, called haniwa, embody the taste for simple forms and natural material. Housed in a structure made of raised wooden piles and a thatched roof, the shrines are left unpainted as the haniwa were left unglazed.
Answer to Question 2
Song painters cast their own long shadow over the future with a focus on the landscape. The Song style of monumental landscape was largely the creation of Li Cheng. In his hands, the elementsmobile mid-air perspective, monochrome ink, vertical format, flowing water, shrouding mists, and a buildup of forms culminating in towering mountainswere gathered into a newly harmonious and spacious whole.
