title: Fire sprinkler system

text: In the UK, since the 1990s sprinklers have gained recognition within the Building Regulations (England and Wales) and Scottish Building Standards and under certain circumstances, the presence of sprinkler systems is deemed to provide a form of alternative compliance to some parts of the codes. For example, the presence of a sprinkler system will usually permit doubling of compartment sizes and increases in travel distances (to fire exits) as well as allowing a reduction in the fire rating of internal compartment walls.


title: Fire sprinkler system

text: Each closed-head sprinkler is held closed by either a heat-sensitive glass bulb or a two-part metal link held together with fusible alloy. The glass bulb or link applies pressure to a pipe cap which acts as a plug which prevents water from flowing until the ambient temperature around the sprinkler reaches the design activation temperature of the individual sprinkler head. In a standard wet-pipe sprinkler system, each sprinkler activates independently when the predetermined heat level is reached. Thus, only sprinklers near the fire will operate, normally just one or two. This maximizes water pressure over the point of fire origin, and minimizes water damage to the building.


title: Fire sprinkler system

text: A sprinkler activation will do less water damage than a fire department hose stream, which provide approximately 900 litres/min (250 US gallons/min). A typical sprinkler used for industrial manufacturing occupancies discharge about 75–150 litres/min (20–40 US gallons/min). However, a typical Early Suppression Fast Response (ESFR) sprinkler at a pressure of will discharge approximately . In addition, a sprinkler will usually activate within one to four minutes of the fire's start, whereas it typically takes at least five minutes for a fire department to register an alarm and drive to the fire site, and an additional ten minutes to set up equipment and apply hose streams to the fire. This additional time can result in a much larger fire, requiring much more water to extinguish.


title: Fire sprinkler system

text: By a wide margin, wet pipe sprinkler systems are installed more often than all other types of fire sprinkler systems. They also are the most reliable, because they are simple, with the only operating components being the automatic sprinklers and (commonly, but not always) the automatic alarm check valve. An automatic water supply provides water under pressure to the system piping.


title: Fire sprinkler system

text: Wet systems may be charged with an antifreeze chemical, for use where pipes can't reliably be kept above 40 °F (4 °C).


title: Fire sprinkler system

text: While such systems were once common in cold areas, after several fires caused by systems running too high a percentage of antifreeze, the regulatory authority in the United States effectively banned new antifreeze installations. A sunset date of 2022 applies to older antifreeze systems in the USA. This regulatory action has greatly increased costs and reduced options for cold weather sprinkler systems.


title: Fire sprinkler system

text: Dry pipe systems are the second most common sprinkler system type. Dry pipe systems are installed in spaces in which the ambient temperature may be cold enough to freeze the water in a wet pipe system, rendering the system inoperable. Dry pipe systems are most often used in unheated buildings, in parking garages, in outside canopies attached to heated buildings (in which a wet pipe system would be provided), or in refrigerated coolers. In regions using NFPA regulations, wet pipe systems cannot be installed unless the range of ambient temperatures remains above .


title: Fire sprinkler system

text: Water is not present in the piping until the system operates; instead, the piping is filled with air at a pressure below the water supply pressure. To prevent the larger water supply pressure from prematurely forcing water into the piping, the design of the dry pipe valve (a specialized type of check valve) results in a greater force on top of the check valve clapper by the use of a larger valve clapper area exposed to the piping air pressure, as compared to the higher water pressure but smaller clapper surface area.


title: Fire sprinkler system

text: When one or more of the automatic sprinkler heads is triggered, it opens allowing the air in the piping to vent from that sprinkler. Each sprinkler operates independently, as its temperature rises above its triggering threshold. As the air pressure in the piping drops, the pressure differential across the dry pipe valve changes, allowing water to enter the piping system. Water flow from sprinklers, needed to control the fire, is delayed until the air is vented from the sprinklers. In regions using NFPA 13 regulations, the time it takes water to reach the hydraulically remote sprinkler from the time that sprinkler is activated is limited to a maximum of 60 seconds. In industry practice, this is known as the "Maximum Time of Water Delivery". The maximum time of water delivery may be required to be reduced, depending on the hazard classification of the area protected by the sprinkler system.


title: Fire sprinkler system

text: Some property owners and building occupants may view dry pipe sprinklers as advantageous for protection of valuable collections and other water sensitive areas. This perceived benefit is due to a fear that wet system piping may slowly leak water without attracting notice, while dry pipe systems may not fail in this manner.


title: Fire sprinkler system

text: "Deluge" systems are systems in which all sprinklers connected to the water piping system are open, in that the heat sensing operating element is removed, or specifically designed as such. These systems are used for special hazards where rapid fire spread is a concern as they provide a simultaneous application of water over the entire hazard. They are sometimes installed in personnel egress paths or building openings to slow travel of fire (e.g. openings in a fire-rated wall).


title: Fire sprinkler system

text: Water is not present in the piping until the system operates. Because the sprinkler orifices are open, the piping is at atmospheric pressure. To prevent the water supply pressure from forcing water into the piping, a "deluge valve" is used in the water supply connection, which is a mechanically latched valve. It is a non-resetting valve, and stays open once tripped.


title: Fire sprinkler system

text: Because the heat sensing elements normally present in automatic sprinklers have been removed (resulting in open sprinklers), the deluge valve is opened via a signal from the fire alarm system which utilizes fire detectors. The type of fire alarm initiating device is selected mainly based on the hazard (e.g. pilot sprinklers, smoke detectors, heat detectors, or optical flame detectors). The initiation device signals the fire alarm panel, which in turn signals the deluge valve to open. Activation can also be via an electric or pneumatic fire alarm pull station which signals the fire alarm panel which signals the deluge valve to open.


title: Fire sprinkler system

text: Pre-action sprinkler systems are specialized for use in locations where accidental activation is especially undesirable, such as in museums with rare art works, manuscripts, or books; and data centers, for protection of computer equipment from accidental water discharge.


title: Fire sprinkler system

text: Pre-action systems are hybrids of wet, dry, and deluge systems, depending on the exact system goal. There are two main sub-types of pre-action systems: single interlock, and double interlock.


title: Fire sprinkler system

text: The operation of single interlock systems are similar to dry systems except that these systems require that a "preceding" fire detection event, typically the activation of a heat or smoke detector takes place prior to the "action" of water introduction into the system's piping by opening the pre-action valve which is a mechanically latched valve (i.e. similar to a deluge valve). In this way, the system is essentially converted from a dry system into a wet system. The intent is to reduce the undesirable time delay of water delivery to sprinklers that is inherent in dry systems. Prior to fire detection, if the sprinkler operates, or the piping system develops a leak, loss of air pressure in the piping will activate a trouble alarm. In this case, the pre-action valve will not open due to loss of supervisory pressure, and water will not enter the piping.


title: Fire sprinkler system

text: Double interlock systems require that both a "preceding" fire detection event, typically the activation of a heat or smoke detector, and an automatic sprinkler operation take place prior to the "action" of water introduction into the system's piping. Activation of either the fire detectors alone, or sprinklers alone, without the concurrent operation of the other will not allow water to enter the piping. Because water does not enter the piping until a sprinkler operates, double interlock systems are considered as dry systems in terms of water delivery times, and similarly require a larger design area.


title: Fire sprinkler system

text: Electronic sprinkler systems are systems comprising sprinklers in which the heat sensing operating element is replaced by electronic sensing and electronically triggered actuation. Sprinkler operation is often controlled via an algorithm that determines which sprinklers will operate and when. These systems are often used in scenarios that require fast response and controlled sprinkler operations, such as high-ceiling pallet racking storage with fast-burning commodities or dense storage applications.


title: Fire sprinkler system

text: A foam water fire sprinkler system is a special application system, discharging a mixture of water and low expansion foam concentrate, resulting in a foam spray from the sprinkler. These systems are usually used with special hazards occupancies associated with high challenge fires, such as flammable liquids, and airport hangars. Operation is as described above, depending on the system type into which the foam is injected.


title: Fire sprinkler system

text: "Water spray" systems are operationally identical to a deluge system, but the piping and discharge nozzle spray patterns are designed to protect a uniquely configured hazard, usually being three-dimensional components or equipment (i.e. as opposed to a deluge system, which is designed to cover the horizontal floor area of a room). The nozzles used may not be listed fire sprinklers, and are usually selected for a specific spray pattern to conform to the three-dimensional nature of the hazard (e.g. typical spray patterns being oval, fan, full circle, narrow jet). Examples of hazards protected by water spray systems are electrical transformers containing oil for cooling or turbo-generator bearings. Water spray systems can also be used externally on the surfaces of tanks containing flammable liquids or gases (such as hydrogen). Here the water spray is intended to cool the tank and its contents to prevent tank rupture/explosion (BLEVE) and fire spread.


title: Fire sprinkler system

text: Water mist systems are used for special hazards applications. This type of system is typically used where water damage may be a concern, or where water supplies are limited. NFPA 750 defines water mist as a water spray with a droplet size of "less than 1000 microns at the minimum operation pressure of the discharge nozzle." The droplet size can be controlled by the adjusting discharge pressure through a nozzle of a fixed orifice size. The fire suppression mechanisms provided by water mist systems include cooling, local flame oxygen reduction, and radiation blocking.


title: Fire sprinkler system

text: In operation, water mist systems can operate with the same functionality as deluge, wet pipe, dry pipe, or pre-action systems. The difference is that a water mist system uses a compressed gas as an atomizing medium, which is pumped through the sprinkler pipe. Instead of compressed gas, some systems use a high-pressure pump to pressurize the water so it atomizes as it exits the sprinkler nozzle. Systems can be applied using local application method or total flooding method, similar to Clean Agent Fire Protection Systems.


title: Fire sprinkler system

text: Sprinkler systems are intended to either "control" the fire or to "suppress" the fire. "Control mode" sprinklers are intended to control the heat release rate of the fire to prevent building structure collapse, and pre-wet the surrounding combustibles to prevent fire spread. The fire is not extinguished until the burning combustibles are exhausted or manual extinguishment is effected by firefighters. "Suppression mode" sprinklers (formerly known as "Early Suppression Fast Response" (ESFR) sprinklers) are intended to result in a severe sudden reduction of the heat release rate of the fire, followed quickly by complete extinguishment, prior to manual intervention.


title: Fire sprinkler system

text: Most sprinkler systems installed today are designed using an area and density approach. First the building use and building contents are analyzed to determine the level of fire hazard. Usually buildings are classified as light hazard, ordinary hazard group 1, ordinary hazard group 2, extra hazard group 1, or extra hazard group 2. After determining the hazard classification, a design area and density can be determined by referencing tables in the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) standards. The design area is a theoretical area of the building representing the worst case area where a fire could burn. The design density is a measurement of how much water per square foot of floor area should be applied to the design area.


title: Fire sprinkler system

text: For example, in an office building classified as light hazard, a typical design area would be and the design density would be per or a minimum of applied over the design area. Another example would be a manufacturing facility classified as ordinary hazard group 2 where a typical design area would be and the design density would be per or a minimum of applied over the design area.


title: Fire sprinkler system

text: After the design area and density have been determined, calculations are performed to prove that the system can deliver the required amount of water over the required design area. These calculations account for all of the pressure that is lost or gained between the water supply source and the sprinklers that would operate in the design area. This includes pressure losses due to friction inside the piping and losses or gains due to elevational differences between the source and the discharging sprinklers. Sometimes momentum pressure from water velocity inside the piping is also calculated. Typically these calculations are performed using computer software but before the advent of computer systems these sometimes complicated calculations were performed by hand. This skill of calculating sprinkler systems by hand is still required training for a sprinkler system design technologist who seeks senior level certification from engineering certification organizations such as the National Institute for Certification in Engineering Technologies (NICET).


title: Fire sprinkler system

text: Sprinkler systems in residential structures are becoming more common as the cost of such systems becomes more practical and the benefits become more obvious. Residential sprinkler systems usually fall under a residential classification separate from the commercial classifications mentioned above. A commercial sprinkler system is designed to protect the structure and the occupants from a fire. Most residential sprinkler systems are primarily designed to suppress a fire in such a way to allow for the safe escape of the building occupants. While these systems will often also protect the structure from major fire damage, this is a secondary consideration. In residential structures sprinklers are often omitted from closets, bathrooms, balconies, garages and attics because a fire in these areas would not usually impact the occupant's escape route.


title: Fire sprinkler system

text: In 2008, the installed costs of sprinkler systems ranged from US$0.31 – $3.66 per square foot, depending on type and location. Residential systems, installed at the time of initial home construction and utilizing municipal water supplies, average about US$0.35/square foot. Systems can be installed during construction or retrofitted. Some communities have laws requiring residential sprinkler systems, especially where large municipal hydrant water supplies ("fire flows") are not available. Nationwide in the United States, one and two-family homes generally do not require fire sprinkler systems, although the overwhelming loss of life due to fires occurs in these spaces. Residential sprinkler systems are inexpensive (about the same per square foot as carpeting or floor tiling), but require larger water supply piping than is normally installed in homes, so retrofitting is usually cost prohibitive.


title: Fire sprinkler system

text: According to the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), fires in hotels with sprinklers averaged 78% less damage than fires in hotels without them (1983–1987). The NFPA says the average loss per fire in buildings with sprinklers was $2,300, compared to an average loss of $10,300 in unsprinklered buildings. However, in a purely economic comparison, this is not a complete picture; the total costs of fitting, and the costs arising from non-fire triggered release must be factored.


title: Fire sprinkler system

text: The NFPA states that it "has no record of a fire killing more than two people in a completely sprinklered building where a sprinkler system was properly operating, except in an explosion or flash fire or where industrial fire brigade members or employees were killed during fire suppression operations." Elsewhere it has stated, "NFPA has no record of a multiple fatality in a fully sprinklered building where the system operated."


title: Fire sprinkler system

text: The world's largest fire sprinkler manufacturer is the Fire Protection Products division of Tyco International.


title: .su

text: .su is an Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) that was designated for the Soviet Union (USSR) on 19 September 1990. Even though the Soviet Union itself was dissolved a mere 15 months later, the .su top-level domain remains in use today with over 100,000 .su domains . It is administered by the Russian Institute for Public Networks (RIPN, or RosNIIROS in Russian transcription).


title: .su

text: After 1989 a set of new internet domains was created in Europe, including .pl (Poland), .cs (Czechoslovakia), .yu (Yugoslavia) and .dd (East Germany). Among them, there was also a domain for the USSR – .su. Initially, before two-letter ccTLDs became standard, the Soviet Union was to receive a .ussr domain. The .su domain was proposed by the 19-year-old Finnish student Petri Ojala. On 26 December 1991 the country was dissolved and its constituent republics gained independence, which should have caused the domain to begin a phase-out process, as happened with those of East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia. Until 1994 there was no assigned top-level domain name for Russia. For this reason the country continued to use the Soviet domain. In 1994 the .ru domain was created, which is supposed to eventually replace the .su domain (domains for the republics other than Russia were created at different times in the mid-nineties). The domain was supposed to be withdrawn by ICANN, but it was kept at the request of the Russian government and Internet users.


title: .su

text: In 2001, the managers of the domain stated that they would commence accepting new .su registrations, but it is unclear whether this action was compatible with ICANN policies. ICANN has expressed intentions to terminate the .su domain and IANA states that the domain is being phased out, but lobbyists stated in September 2007 that they had started negotiations with ICANN on retaining the domain. In the first quarter of 2008, .su registrations increased by 45%.


title: .su

text: The domain was intended to be used by Soviet institutions and companies operating in the USSR. The dissolution of the Soviet Union meant that the new TLD was superseded by the new country TLDs of the former Soviet republics. Despite this, .su is still in use . Most of the .su domains are registered in Russia and the United States. According to the "RU-CENTER" data from May 2010, there were over 93,500 registered domains with the .su TLD (there are over 2.8 million .ru domains). Among the entities still using this domain is the pro-Russian armed insurgency in Eastern Ukraine. The Russian Putinist youth movement Nashi used the domain until its dissolution in 2019. Some organizations with roots in the former Soviet Union also still use this TLD. The pro-Russian separatist group Donetsk People's Republic have also registered their domain with the TLD. The .su domain also hosts white supremacist websites that have been deplatformed elsewhere, formerly including "The Daily Stormer".


title: .su

text: The domain has been reported to host many cybercrime activities due to the relaxed and outdated terms of use, along with staying out of focus (2% usage comparing to the primary .ru zone). Rules for timely suspension of malicious domains have been in place since 2013 to (attempt to) address the issue.


title: Chinese art

text: Chinese art is visual art that originated in or is practiced in China, Greater China or by Chinese artists. Art created by Chinese residing outside of China can also be considered a part of Chinese art when it is based in or draws on Chinese culture, heritage, and history. Early "Stone Age art" dates back to 10,000 BC, mostly consisting of simple pottery and sculptures. After that period, Chinese art, like Chinese history, was typically classified by the succession of ruling dynasties of Chinese emperors, most of which lasted several hundred years. The Palace Museum in Beijing and the National Palace Museum in Taipei contains extensive collections of Chinese art.


title: Chinese art

text: Chinese art is marked by an unusual degree of continuity within, and consciousness of, tradition, lacking an equivalent to the Western collapse and gradual recovery of Western classical styles of art. Decorative arts are extremely important in Chinese art, and much of the finest work was produced in large workshops or factories by essentially unknown artists, especially in Chinese ceramics.


title: Chinese art

text: Much of the best work in ceramics, textiles, carved lacquer were produced over a long period by the various Imperial factories or workshops, which as well as being used by the court was distributed internally and abroad on a huge scale to demonstrate the wealth and power of the Emperors. In contrast, the tradition of ink wash painting, practiced mainly by scholar-officials and court painters especially of landscapes, flowers, and birds, developed aesthetic values depending on the individual imagination of and objective observation by the artist that are similar to those of the West, but long pre-dated their development there. After contacts with Western art became increasingly important from the 19th century onwards, in recent decades China has participated with increasing success in worldwide contemporary art.


title: Chinese art

text: Traditional Chinese painting involves essentially the same techniques as Chinese calligraphy and is done with a


title: Chinese art

text: brush dipped in black or colored ink; oils are not used. As with calligraphy, the most popular materials on which paintings are made of paper and silk. The finished work can be mounted on scrolls, such as hanging scrolls or handscrolls. Traditional painting can also be done on album sheets, walls, lacquerware, folding screens, and other media.


title: Chinese art

text: Artists from the Han (202 BC) to the Tang (618–906) dynasties mainly painted the human figure. Much of what is known of early Chinese figure painting comes from burial sites, where paintings were preserved on silk banners, lacquered objects, and tomb walls. Many early tomb paintings were meant to protect the dead or help their souls get to paradise. Others illustrated the teachings of the Chinese philosopher Confucius, or showed scenes of daily life. Most Chinese portraits showed a formal full-length frontal view, and were used in the family in ancestor veneration. Imperial portraits were more flexible, but were generally not seen outside the court, and portraiture formed no part of Imperial propaganda, as in other cultures.


title: Chinese art

text: Many critics consider landscape to be the highest form of Chinese painting. The time from the Five Dynasties period to the Northern Song period (907–1127) is known as the "Great age of Chinese landscape". In the north, artists such as Jing Hao, Li Cheng, Fan Kuan, and Guo Xi painted pictures of towering mountains, using strong black lines, ink wash, and sharp, dotted brushstrokes to suggest rough rocks. In the south, Dong Yuan, Juran, and other artists painted the rolling hills and rivers of their native countryside in peaceful scenes done with softer, rubbed brushwork. These two kinds of scenes and techniques became the classical styles of Chinese landscape painting.


title: Chinese art

text: Chinese ritual bronzes from the Shang and Western Zhou dynasties come from a period of over a thousand years from c. 1500 BC, and have exerted a continuing influence over Chinese art. They are cast with complex patterned and zoomorphic decoration, but avoid the human figure, unlike the huge figures only recently discovered at Sanxingdui. The spectacular Terracotta Army was assembled for the tomb of Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of a unified China from 221 to 210 BC, as a grand imperial version of the figures long placed in tombs to enable the deceased to enjoy the same lifestyle in the afterlife as when alive, replacing actual sacrifices of very early periods. Smaller figures in pottery or wood were placed in tombs for many centuries afterwards, reaching a peak of quality in the Tang dynasty.


title: Chinese art

text: Native Chinese religions do not usually use cult images of deities, or even represent them, and large religious sculpture is nearly all Buddhist, dating mostly from the 4th to the 14th century, and initially using Greco-Buddhist models arriving via the Silk Road. Buddhism is also the context of all large portrait sculpture; in total contrast to some other areas in medieval China even painted images of the emperor were regarded as private. Imperial tombs have spectacular avenues of approach lined with real and mythological animals on a scale matching Egypt, and smaller versions decorate temples and palaces. Small Buddhist figures and groups were produced to a very high quality in a range of media, as was relief decoration of all sorts of objects, especially in metalwork and jade. Sculptors of all sorts were regarded as artisans and very few names are recorded.


title: Chinese art

text: Chinese ceramic ware shows a continuous development since the pre-dynastic periods, and is one of the most significant forms of Chinese art. China is richly endowed with the raw materials needed for making ceramics. The first types of ceramics were made during the Palaeolithic era, and in later periods range from construction materials such as bricks and tiles, to hand-built pottery vessels fired in bonfires or kilns, to the sophisticated Chinese porcelain wares made for the imperial court. Most later Chinese ceramics, even of the finest quality, were made on an industrial scale, thus very few individual potters or painters are known. Many of the most renowned workshops were owned by or reserved for the Emperor, and large quantities of ceramics were exported as diplomatic gifts or for trade from an early date.


title: Chinese art

text: As well as porcelain, a wide range of materials that were more valuable were worked and decorated with great skill for a range of uses or just for display. Chinese jade was attributed with magical powers, and was used in the Stone and Bronze Ages for large and impractical versions of everyday weapons and tools, as well as the "bi" disks and "cong" vessels. Later a range of objects and small sculptures were carved in jade, a difficult and time-consuming technique. Bronze, gold and silver, rhinoceros horn, Chinese silk, ivory, lacquer and carved lacquer, cloisonne enamel and many other materials had specialist artists working in them. Cloisonne underwent an interesting process of artistic hybridization in China, particularly in the pieces promoted by missionaries and Chinese Christian communities.


title: Chinese art

text: Folding screens () are often decorated with beautiful art; major themes include mythology, scenes of palace life, and nature. Materials such as wood panel, paper and silk are used in making folding screens. They were considered ideal ornaments for many painters to display their paintings and calligraphy. Many artists painted on paper or silk and applied it onto the folding screen. There were two distinct artistic folding screens mentioned in historical literature of the era.


title: Chinese art

text: Chinese architecture refers to a style of architecture that has taken shape in East Asia over many centuries. Especially Japan, Korea, Vietnam and Ryukyu. The structural principles of Chinese architecture have remained largely unchanged, the main changes being only the decorative details. Since the Tang Dynasty, Chinese architecture has had a major influence on the architectural styles of Korea, Vietnam, and Japan.


title: Chinese art

text: From the Neolithic era Longshan Culture and Bronze Age era Erlitou culture, the earliest rammed earth fortifications exist, with evidence of timber architecture. The subterranean ruins of the palace at Yinxu dates back to the Shang Dynasty (c. 1600 BC–1046 BC). In historic China, architectural emphasis was laid upon the horizontal axis, in particular the construction of a heavy platform and a large roof that floats over this base, with the vertical walls not as well emphasized. This contrasts Western architecture, which tends to grow in height and depth. Chinese architecture stresses the visual impact of the width of the buildings. The deviation from this standard is the tower architecture of the Chinese tradition, which began as a native tradition and was eventually influenced by the Buddhist building for housing religious sutras — the stupa — which came from Nepal. Ancient Chinese tomb model representations of multiple story residential towers and watchtowers date to the Han Dynasty (202 BC–220 AD). However, the earliest extant Buddhist Chinese pagoda is the Songyue Pagoda, a 40 m (131 ft) tall circular-based brick tower built in Henan province in the year 523 AD. From the 6th century onwards, stone-based structures become more common, while the earliest are from stone and brick arches found in Han Dynasty tombs. The Zhaozhou Bridge built from 595 to 605 AD is China's oldest extant stone bridge, as well as the world's oldest fully stone open-spandrel segmental arch bridge.


title: Chinese art

text: The vocational trade of architect, craftsman, and engineer was not as highly respected in premodern Chinese society as the scholar-bureaucrats who were drafted into the government by the civil service examination system. Much of the knowledge about early Chinese architecture was passed on from one tradesman to his son or associative apprentice. However, there were several early treatises on architecture in China, with encyclopedic information on architecture dating back to the Han Dynasty. The height of the classical Chinese architectural tradition in writing and illustration can be found in the "Yingzao Fashi", a building manual written by 1100 and published by Li Jie (1065–1110) in 1103. In it there are numerous and meticulous illustrations and diagrams showing the assembly of halls and building components, as well as classifying structure types and building components.


title: Chinese art

text: There were certain architectural features that were reserved solely for buildings built for the Emperor of China. One example is the use of yellow roof tiles; yellow having been the Imperial color, yellow roof tiles still adorn most of the buildings within the Forbidden City. The Temple of Heaven, however, uses blue roof tiles to symbolize the sky. The roofs are almost invariably supported by brackets, a feature shared only with the largest of religious buildings. The wooden columns of the buildings, as well as the surface of the walls, tend to be red in colour.


title: Chinese art

text: Chinoiserie is the European interpretation and imitation of Chinese and East Asian artistic traditions, especially in the decorative arts, garden design, architecture, literature, theatre, and music. The aesthetic of Chinoiserie has been expressed in different ways depending on the region. Its acknowledgement derives from the current of Orientalism, which studied Far East cultures from a historical, philological, anthropological, philosophical and religious point of view. First appearing in the 17th century, this trend was popularized in the 18th century due to the rise in trade with China and East Asia.


title: Chinese art

text: As a style, chinoiserie is related to the Rococo style. Both styles are characterized by exuberant decoration, asymmetry, a focus on materials, and stylized nature and subject matter that focuses on leisure and pleasure. Chinoiserie focuses on subjects that were thought by colonial-era Europeans to be typical of Chinese culture.


title: Chinese art

text: Early forms of art in China are found in the Neolithic Yangshao culture, which dates back to the 6th millennium BC. Archeological findings such as those at the Banpo have revealed that the Yangshao made pottery; early ceramics were unpainted and most often cord-marked. The first decorations were fish and human faces, but these eventually evolved into symmetrical-geometric abstract designs, some painted.


title: Chinese art

text: The most distinctive feature of Yangshao culture was the extensive use of painted pottery, especially human facial, animal, and geometric designs. Unlike the later Longshan culture, the Yangshao culture did not use pottery wheels in pottery making. Excavations have found that children were buried in painted pottery jars.


title: Chinese art

text: The Liangzhu culture was the last Neolithic Jade culture in the Yangtze River Delta and was spaced over a period of about 1,300 years. The Jade from this culture is characterized by finely worked, large ritual jades such as Cong cylinders, Bi discs, Yue axes and also pendants and decorations in the form of chiseled open-work plaques, plates and representations of small birds, turtles and fish. The Liangzhu Jade has a white, milky bone-like aspect due to its Tremolite rock origin and influence of water-based fluids at the burial sites.


title: Chinese art

text: The Bronze Age in China began with the Xia dynasty. Examples from this period have been recovered from ruins of the Erlitou culture, in Shanxi, and include complex but unadorned utilitarian objects. In the following Shang dynasty more elaborate objects, including many ritual vessels, were crafted. The Shang are remembered for their bronze casting, noted for its clarity of detail. Shang bronzesmiths usually worked in foundries outside the cities to make ritual vessels, and sometimes weapons and chariot fittings as well. The bronze vessels were receptacles for storing or serving various solids and liquids used in the performance of sacred ceremonies. Some forms such as the "ku" and "jue" can be very graceful, but the most powerful pieces are the "ding", sometimes described as having an "air of ferocious majesty".


title: Chinese art

text: It is typical of the developed Shang style that all available space is decorated, most often with stylized forms of real and imaginary animals. The most common motif is the "taotie", which shows a mythological being presented frontally as though squashed onto a horizontal plane to form a symmetrical design. The early significance of "taotie" is not clear, but myths about it existed around the late Zhou dynasty. It was considered to be variously a covetous man banished to guard a corner of heaven against evil monsters; or a monster equipped with only a head which tries to devour men but hurts only itself.


title: Chinese art

text: The function and appearance of bronzes changed gradually from the Shang to the Zhou. They shifted from been used in religious rites to more practical purposes. By the Warring States period, bronze vessels had become objects of aesthetic enjoyment. Some were decorated with social scenes, such as from a banquet or hunt; whilst others displayed abstract patterns inlaid with gold, silver, or precious and semiprecious stones.


title: Chinese art

text: Bronze artifacts also have significant meaning and roles in Han Dynasty as well. People used them for funerary purposes which reflect the aesthetic and artistic qualities of Han Dynasty. Many bronze vessels excavated from tombs in Jiangsu Province, China have various shapes like Ding, Hu, and Xun which represent traditional Chinese aesthete. These vessels are classical representations of Chinese celestial art forms which play a great role in ancient Chinese's communication with spirits of their ancestors. Other than the vessels, bronze weapons, daily items, and musical instruments are also found in royal Han families' tomb in Jiangsu. Being able to put a full set of Bianzhong in ones tomb signifies his or her status and class in Han Dynasty since this particular type of instrument is only acquired and owned by royal and wealth families. Apparently, Bianzhong and music are also used as a path for the Han rulers to communication with their Gods. The excavation of Bianzhong, a typical and royal instrument found in ancient China, emphasizes the development of complex music systems in Han Dynasty. The set of Bianzhong can vary in many cases; for example, a specific excavation of Bianzhong from Jiangsu Province include different sets of bells, like Niuzhong and Yongzhong bells, and many of them appear in animal forms like the dragon, a traditional Chinese spiritual animal.


title: Chinese art

text: Shang bronzes became appreciated as works of art from the Song dynasty, when they were collected and prized not only for their shape and design but also for the various green, blue green, and even reddish patinas created by chemical action as they lay buried in the ground. The study of early Chinese bronze casting is a specialized field of art history.


title: Chinese art

text: A rich source of art in early China was the state of Chu, which developed in the Yangtze River valley. Excavations of Chu tombs have found painted wooden sculptures, jade disks, glass beads, musical instruments, and an assortment of lacquerware. Many of the lacquer objects are finely painted, red on black or black on red. A site in Changsha, Hunan province, has revealed some of the oldest paintings on silk discovered to date.


title: Chinese art

text: During the Qin Dynasty, Chinese font, measurement systems, currency were all standardized in order to bring further unification. The Great Wall of China was expanded as a defensive construction against the northern intruders.


title: Chinese art

text: The Terracotta Army, inside the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor, consists of more than 7,000 life-size tomb terra-cotta figures of warriors and horses buried with the self-proclaimed first Emperor of Qin (Qin Shi Huang) in 210–209 BC. The figures were painted before being placed into the vault. The original colors were visible when the pieces were first unearthed. However, exposure to air caused the pigments to fade, so today the unearthed figures appear terracotta in color. The figures are in several poses including standing infantry and kneeling archers, as well as charioteers with horses. Each figure's head appears to be unique, showing a variety of facial features and expressions as well as hair styles. The spectacular realism displayed by the sculptures is an evidence of the advancement of art during the Qin Dynasty.


title: Chinese art

text: The aesthetic components have always been as important as the functional parts on a musical instrument in Chinese history. The Qin zither has seven strings. Although Qin zither can sometimes remind people of corruptive history times, it is often considered as a delivery of peace and harmony.


title: Chinese art

text: The Han dynasty was known for jade burial suits. One of the earliest known depictions of a landscape in Chinese art comes from a pair of hollow-tile door panels from a Western Han dynasty tomb near Zhengzhou, dated 60 BC. A scene of continuous depth recession is conveyed by the zigzag of lines representing roads and garden walls, giving the impression that one is looking down from the top of a hill. This artistic landscape scene was made by the repeated impression of standard stamps on the clay while it was still soft and not yet fired. However, the oldest known landscape art scene tradition in the classical sense of painting is a work by Zhan Ziqian of the Sui dynasty (581–618).


title: Chinese art

text: Other than jade artifacts, bronze is another favorite medium for artists since it is hard and durable. Bronze mirrors have been mass-produced in Han Dynasty(206 BC-220 AD), and almost every tomb excavated that has been dated as Han Dynasty has mirror in the burial. The reflective side is usually made by a composition of bronze, copper, tin, and lead. The word "mirror" means "to reflect" or "to look into" in Chinese, so bronze mirrors have been used as a trope for reflecting the reality. The ancient Chinese believe that mirror can act as a representation of the reality, which could make them more aware of the current situation; also, mirrors are used as a media to convey or present a reflection of the past events. The bronze mirrors made in Han Dynasty always have complex decorations on their non-reflective side; some of them consist narratives that tell stories. The narratives themselves always reflect the common but essential theories to the Han people's lives.


title: Chinese art

text: Buddhism arrived in China around the 1st century AD (although there are some traditions about a monk visiting China during Asoka's reign), and through to the 8th century it became very active and creative in the development of Buddhist art, particularly in the area of statuary. Receiving this distant religion, China soon incorporated strong Chinese traits in its artistic expression.


title: Chinese art

text: In the fifth to sixth century the Northern dynasties, rather removed from the original sources of inspiration, tended to develop rather symbolic and abstract modes of representation, with schematic lines. Their style is also said to be solemn and majestic. The lack of corporeality of this art, and its distance from the original Buddhist objective of expressing the pure ideal of enlightenment in an accessible, realistic manner, progressively led to a research towards more naturalism and realism, leading to the expression of Tang Buddhist art.


title: Chinese art

text: In ancient China, painting and calligraphy were the most highly appreciated arts in court circles and were produced almost exclusively by amateurs, aristocrats and scholar-officials who alone had the leisure to perfect the technique and sensibility necessary for great brushwork. Calligraphy was thought to be the highest and purest form of painting. The implements were the brush, made of animal hair, and black ink made from pine soot and animal glue. Writing as well as painting was done on silk. But after the invention of paper in the 1st century, silk was gradually replaced by the new and cheaper material. Original writings by famous calligraphers have been greatly valued throughout China's history and are mounted on scrolls and hung on walls in the same way that paintings are.


title: Chinese art

text: Wang Xizhi was a famous Chinese calligrapher who lived in the 4th century AD. His most famous work is the "Lanting Xu", the preface to a collection of poems. The script was often celebrated as the high point of the semi-cursive "Running Style" in the history of Chinese calligraphy.


title: Chinese art

text: Wei Shuo was a well-known calligrapher of the Eastern Jin dynasty who established consequential rules about the Regular Script. Her well-known works include "Famous Concubine Inscription" (名姬帖 Ming Ji Tie) and "The Inscription of Wei-shi He'nan" (衛氏和南帖 Wei-shi He'nan Tie).


title: Chinese art

text: Gu Kaizhi is a celebrated painter of ancient China born in Wuxi. He wrote three books about painting theory: "On Painting" (畫論), "Introduction of Famous Paintings of Wei and Jin Dynasties" (魏晉名畫記) and "Painting Yuntai Mountain" (畫雲臺山記). He wrote, "In figure paintings the clothes and the appearances were not very important. The eyes were the spirit and the decisive factor."


title: Chinese art

text: Three of Gu's paintings still survive today: "Admonitions of the Instructress to the Court Ladies", "Nymph of the Luo River" (洛神賦), and "Wise and Benevolent Women".


title: Chinese art

text: There are other examples of Jin dynasty painting from tombs. This includes the "Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove," painted on a brick wall of a tomb located near modern Nanjing and now found in the Shaanxi Provincial Museum. Each of the figures are labeled and shown either drinking, writing, or playing a musical instrument. Other tomb paintings also depict scenes of daily life, such as men plowing fields with teams of oxen.


title: Chinese art

text: Following a transition under the Sui dynasty, Buddhist sculpture of the Tang evolved towards a markedly lifelike expression. As a consequence of the dynasty's openness to foreign trade and influences through the Silk Road, Tang dynasty Buddhist sculpture assumed a rather classical form, inspired by the Greco-Buddhist art of Central Asia.


title: Chinese art

text: However, foreign influences came to be negatively perceived towards the end of the Tang dynasty. In the year 845, the Tang emperor Wu-Tsung outlawed all "foreign" religions (including Christian Nestorianism, Zoroastrianism and Buddhism) in order to support the indigenous Taoism. He confiscated Buddhist possessions and forced the faith to go underground, therefore affecting the ulterior development of the religion and its arts in China.


title: Chinese art

text: Glazed or painted earthenware Tang dynasty tomb figures are famous, and well-represented in museums around the world. Most wooden Tang sculptures have not survived, though representations of the Tang international style can still be seen in Nara, Japan. The longevity of stone sculpture has proved much greater. Some of the finest examples can be seen at Longmen, near Luoyang (Henan), Yungang near Datong (Shanxi), and Bingling Temple in Gansu.


title: Chinese art

text: Beginning in the Tang dynasty (618–907), the primary subject matter of painting was the landscape, known as shanshui (mountain water) painting. In these landscapes, usually monochromatic and sparse, the purpose was not to reproduce exactly the appearance of nature but rather to grasp an emotion or atmosphere so as to catch the "rhythm" of nature.


title: Chinese art

text: Painting in the traditional style involved essentially the same techniques as calligraphy and was done with a brush dipped in black or colored ink; oils were not used. As with calligraphy, the most popular materials on which paintings were made were paper and silk. The finished works were then mounted on scrolls, which could be hung or rolled up. Traditional painting was also done in albums, on walls, lacquer work, and in other media.


title: Chinese art

text: Dong Yuan was an active painter in the Southern Tang Kingdom. He was known for both figure and landscape paintings, and exemplified the elegant style which would become the standard for brush painting in China over the next 900 years. As with many artists in China, his profession was as an official where he studied the existing styles of Li Sixun and Wang Wei. However, he added to the number of techniques, including more sophisticated perspective, use of pointillism and crosshatching to build up vivid effect.


title: Chinese art

text: Zhan Ziqian was a painter during the Sui dynasty. His only painting in existence is "Strolling About In Spring" arranged mountains perspectively. Because pure landscape paintings are hardly seen in Europe until the 17th century, "Strolling About In Spring" may well be the world's first landscape painting.


title: Chinese art

text: During the Song dynasty (960–1279), landscapes of more subtle expression appeared; immeasurable distances were conveyed through the use of blurred outlines, mountain contours disappearing into the mist, and impressionistic treatment of natural phenomena. Emphasis was placed on the spiritual qualities of the painting and on the ability of the artist to reveal the inner harmony of man and nature, as perceived according to Taoist and Buddhist concepts.


title: Chinese art

text: Liang Kai was a Chinese painter who lived in the 13th century (Song dynasty). He called himself "Madman Liang", and he spent his life drinking and painting. Eventually, he retired and became a Zen monk. Liang is credited with inventing the Zen school of Chinese art. Wen Tong was a painter who lived in the 11th century. He was famous for ink paintings of bamboo. He could hold two brushes in one hand and paint two different distanced bamboos simultaneously. He did not need to see the bamboo while he painted them because he had seen a lot of them.


title: Chinese art

text: Zhang Zeduan was a notable painter for his horizontal "Along the River During Qingming Festival" landscape and cityscape painting. It is considered one of China's most renowned paintings and has had many well-known remakes throughout Chinese history. Other famous paintings include "The Night Revels of Han Xizai", originally painted by the Southern Tang artist Gu Hongzhong in the 10th century, while the well-known version of his painting is a 12th-century remake of the Song dynasty. This is a large horizontal handscroll of a domestic scene showing men of the gentry class being entertained by musicians and dancers while enjoying food, beverage, and wash basins provided by maidservants. In 2000, the modern artist Wang Qingsong created a parody of this painting with a long, horizontal photograph of people in modern clothing making similar facial expressions, poses, and hand gestures as the original painting.


title: Chinese art

text: With the fall of the Song dynasty in 1279, and the subsequent dislocation caused by the establishment of the Yuan dynasty by the Mongol conquerors, many court and literary artists retreated from social life, and returned to nature, through landscape paintings, and by renewing the "blue and green" style of the Tang era.


title: Chinese art

text: Wang Meng was one such painter, and one of his most famous works is the "Forest Grotto". Zhao Mengfu was a Chinese scholar, painter and calligrapher during the Yuan dynasty. His rejection of the refined, gentle brushwork of his era in favor of the cruder style of the 8th century is considered to have brought about a revolution that created the modern Chinese landscape painting. There was also the vivid and detailed works of art by Qian Xuan (1235–1305), who had served the Song court, and out of patriotism refused to serve the Mongols, instead turning to painting. He was also famous for reviving and reproducing a more Tang dynasty style of painting.


title: Chinese art

text: The later Yuan dynasty is characterized by the work of the so-called "Four Great Masters". The most notable of these was Huang Gongwang (1269–1354) whose cool and restrained landscapes were admired by contemporaries, and by the Chinese literati painters of later centuries. Another of great influence was Ni Zan (1301–1374), who frequently arranged his compositions with a strong and distinct foreground and background, but left the middle-ground as an empty expanse. This scheme was frequently to be adopted by later Ming and Qing dynasty painters.


title: Chinese art

text: Chinese porcelain is made from a hard paste made of the clay kaolin and a feldspar called petuntse, which cements the vessel and seals any . "China" has become synonymous with high-quality porcelain. Most china pots comes from the city of Jingdezhen in China's Jiangxi province. Jingdezhen porcelain, under a variety of names, has been central to porcelain production in China since at least the Yuan dynasty.


title: Chinese art

text: Under the Ming dynasty, Chinese culture bloomed. Narrative painting, with a wider color range and a much busier composition than the Song paintings, was immensely popular during the time.


title: Chinese art

text: Wen Zhengming (1470–1559) developed the style of the Wu school in Suzhou, which dominated Chinese painting during the 16th century.


title: Chinese art

text: European culture began to make an impact on Chinese art during this period. The Jesuit priest Matteo Ricci visited Nanjing with many Western artworks, which were influential in showing different techniques of perspective and shading.


title: Chinese art

text: The early Qing dynasty developed in two main strands: the Orthodox school, and the Individualist painters, both of which followed the theories of Dong Qichang, but emphasizing very different aspects.


title: Chinese art

text: The "Four Wangs", including Wang Jian (1598–1677) and Wang Shimin (1592–1680), were particularly renowned in the Orthodox school, and sought inspiration in recreating the past styles, especially the technical skills in brushstrokes and calligraphy of ancient masters. The younger Wang Yuanqi (1642–1715) ritualized the approach of engaging with and drawing inspiration from a work of an ancient master. His own works were often annotated with his theories of how his painting relates to the master's model.


title: Chinese art

text: The Individualist painters included Bada Shanren (1626–1705) and Shitao (1641–1707). They drew more from the revolutionary ideas of transcending the tradition to achieve an original individualistic styles; in this way they were more faithfully following the way of Dong Qichang than the Orthodox school (who were his official direct followers.)


title: Chinese art

text: Painters outside of the literati-scholar and aristocratic traditions also gained renown, with some artists creating paintings to sell for money. These included Ma Quan (late 17th–18th century), who depicted common flowers, birds, and insects that were not typical subject matter among scholars. Such painters were, however, not separated from formal schools of painting, but were usually well-versed in artistic styles and techniques. Ma Quan, for example, modelled her brushwork on Song dynasty examples. Simultaneously, the boneless technique (), thought to have originated as a preparatory step when painting gold-line images during the Tang, was continued by painters like Yun Shouping (1633–1690) and his descendant Yun Bing.


title: Chinese art

text: As the techniques of color printing were perfected, illustrated manuals on the art of painting began to be published. "Jieziyuan Huazhuan" (Manual of the Mustard Seed Garden), a five-volume work first published in 1679, has been in use as a technical textbook for artists and students ever since.


title: Chinese art

text: Nianhua were a form of colored woodblock prints in China, depicting images for decoration during the Chinese New Year. In the 19th century Nianhua were used as news mediums.


title: Chinese art

text: The Shanghai School is a very important Chinese school of traditional arts during the Qing dynasty and the 20th century. Under efforts of masters from this school, traditional Chinese art reached another climax and continued to the present in forms of "Chinese painting" (中國畫), or "guohua" (國畫) for short. The Shanghai School challenged and broke the literati tradition of Chinese art, while also paying technical homage to the ancient masters and improving on existing traditional techniques. Members of this school were themselves educated literati who had come to question their very status and the purpose of art, and had anticipated the impending modernization of Chinese society. In an era of rapid social change, works from the Shanghai School were widely innovative and diverse, and often contained thoughtful yet subtle social commentary. The best known figures from this school are Ren Xiong, Ren Bonian, Zhao Zhiqian, Wu Changshuo, Sha Menghai, Pan Tianshou, Fu Baoshi, He Tianjian, and Xie Zhiliu. Other well-known painters include Wang Zhen, XuGu, Zhang Xiong, Hu Yuan, and Yang Borun.


title: Chinese art

text: The movement to modernize Chinese art started toward the end of the Qing Dynasty. The traditional art form started to lose its appeal as the feudalistic structure of the society was dissolving. The modern view of the world had to be expressed in a different form. The explorations went on two main paths: one was to draw from the past to enrich the present ( 汲古潤今)*, the other was to "learn the new methods" (學習新法).*


title: Chinese art

text: The literati art for the social elite was not appealing to the bourgeois patrons. Wu Changshuo 吳昌碩 (1844–1927) was among the Shanghai-based artists responsible for flowers and plants as the subject matter. His paintings used bold colors and energetic brush strokes, making them more accessible to the general public. Qi Baishi 齊白石 (1864–1957) painted images like crabs and shrimps that were even more approachable to the common people. Huang Binhong 黄宾虹 (1865–1955) denounced the literati paintings of the Qing dynasty and created his own style of landscape paintings by extensive investigations in Chinese art history. Zhang Daqian 張大千 (1899–1983) used wall paintings in Dunhuang 敦煌 caves to help him move beyond the literati tradition.


title: Chinese art

text: The Lingnan School 岭南画派 made some borrowings from the language of Western art in their ink paintings. Gao Jianfu 高剑父(1879–1951), one of the founders of Lingnan School, was an active participant in the revolutionary movement of Sun Yat-sen 孫中山 (1866–1925). He was innovative in that he intended to use his paintings to highlight national issues, a medium for positive change in society.


title: Chinese art

text: A more radical style change started with Kang Youwei 康有為(1858–1927), a reformer who admired the more reality-based art of the Song dynasty. He believed that Chinese art could be rejuvenated by employing the reality-oriented art techniques of Europe. Xu Beihong徐悲鴻 (1895–1953) took this idea to heart and went to Paris to acquire the necessary skills. Liu Haisu刘海粟(1896–1994), on the other hand, went to Japan to learn western techniques. Both Xu, and Liu became presidents of prestigious art schools, instilling new concepts and skills in the next generation of artists. Cai Yuanpei 蔡元培 (1868–1940) was one of the leaders in the "New Culture Movement" 新文化运动. Those involved believed that intellectual activities should benefit all, not just the elites. Cai's belief that art could play a public, socially reformist role was adopted by Lin Fengmian林風眠(1900–1991).


title: Chinese art

text: Together with Yan Wenliang 顏文樑(1893–1988), Xu, Liu, and Lin were considered the "Four Great Academy Presidents" 四大校長, who spearheaded the national modern art movement. However the subsequent upheaval caused by the Sino-Japanese war and the civil war did not allow this movement to grow. The Chinese modern art movement after the war developed differently in the four the regions: the Mainland, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and overseas.


title: Chinese art

text: The postwar era is roughly from 1949, the end of Chinese civil war, to 1976, the opening of mainland China to the outside world..


title: Chinese art

text: The postwar era in mainland China could be divided into two periods: 1949 to 1966 is generally called "The 17 Years"; 1966 to 1976 is the period of the "Cultural Revolution".


title: Chinese art

text: Chinese artists adopted social realism as a form of expression; it was a combination of revolutionary realism and revolutionary romanticism. Artwork was not valued on its own terms but was subservient to a political purpose. According to Mao Zedong, art should be a "powerful weapon for uniting and educating the people, fighting and destroying the enemy". Praising political leaders and celebrating the achievements of socialism became the theme of all artwork. Western art forms, including Cubism, Fauvism, Abstraction, and Expressionism were deemed superficial and were categorized as formalism.


title: Chinese art

text: The biggest blow to art was the Anti-Rightist Campaign of 1957. Artists who were labeled as rightists were stripped of their right to create and even their jobs, and worse, the social standing of the artists and their families was placed at the lowest level, causing great mental suffering.


title: Chinese art

text: These ten years could also be called the "Ten Years of Calamity" (十年浩劫). In order to destroy everything that supported the old social order, countless temples, historic sites, artworks, and books, were ravaged and burnt. During this period the portrait of Mao and propaganda posters of revolution were everywhere. Anything that was remotely suspected of being out of line was destroyed, and the person behind it was prosecuted. For example, "Owl" by Huang Youyu had one eye open and one eye closed; it was deemed an expression of dissatisfaction with current events. Zong Qixiang's painting, which shows three tigers, was deemed critical of the leader Lin Biao, whose name contained a character that had three tigers in it. "Residual Lotus" by Li Kuchan had eight lotus flowers; it was deemed to be critical of the eight communist approved movies (样板戏). Many prominent artists were persecuted during this time. For example, Yan, Xu, Liu, and Lin, the "Four Great Academy Presidents" (except for Xu who died before the Cultural Revolution), were all prosecuted and jailed, and all their work was destroyed during this time.


title: Chinese art

text: However, despite the difficult environment, some noteworthy paintings were created. The following are some examples:


title: Chinese art

text: Because of its history, traditional Chinese art does not have strong roots in Taiwan. The art forms in Taiwan were generally decorative, until there were youths growing up under the Japanese occupation received formal art education in Japan. Not burdened with traditional art form, their exploration generally followed the path of "learning the new methods" (學習新法). When the Nationalists arrived in Taiwan, a group of ambitious youths, who came with the Nationalists, continued the modern art movement. The most notable were the Fifth Moon Group and the Ton-Fan Art Group東方畫會.


title: Chinese art

text: The original members of the group were alumni with the art majors from the Academic Teachers College師範大學 (the only university with an art major at the time). Their first intention was to show that the effort to create new art was worthwhile in itself, even if it did not directly enhance art pedagogy. (The faculty member that provided the most support was 廖繼春, a Taiwanese native who received training abroad in Japan.) Later, it became a movement to modernize Chinese art.


title: Chinese art

text: The members of the Fifth Moon Group studied western art movements, and concluded that the abstract art form was the best medium for modern Chinese art. They felt the best the Chinese paintings were ones that de-emphasized realistic representation, and emphasized atmosphere and "vividness" 氣韻生動, which comes from the brush strokes and the natural interaction between ink and paper. To further that idea, one does not need representation of objects in painting, or strictly use ink and paper. The beauty of a painting can be appreciated directly from the forms, textures, and colors on the canvas without their relation to real objects.


title: Chinese art

text: The group was active from 1957 to 1972. The main members are Liu Guosong 劉國松, Chuang Che 莊喆, Hu Chi-Chung胡奇中, Fong Chung-ray 馮鍾睿, and Han Hsiang-ning 韓湘寧. The following are a sample of their paintings from that period:


title: Chinese art

text: The members of this group were students who attended private art classes offered by 李仲生, a mainland-born artist who had been one of the active participants in the modern art movement. He and a number of mainland artists who painted in a western style continued the modern art movement by publishing magazines and writing articles to introduce modern art to Taiwan. 李仲生 teaching style was unconventional and socratic in nature.


title: Chinese art

text: The original intention of the group was to introduce modern art to the public. They believed there should be no restriction on the form or style of a modern Chinese painting, as long as the painting expressed meaning that was Chinese in nature. The group was active from 1957 to 1971. The main members were: 霍剛Ho Kan, 李元佳Li Yuan-chia, 吳昊Wu Hao, 歐陽文苑Oyan Wen-Yuen, 夏陽Hsia Yan, 蕭勤Hsiao Chin, 陳道明Tommy Chen, 蕭明賢Hsiao Ming-Hsien. The following are a sample of their paintings from that period:


title: Chinese art

text: Hong Kong was a British colony from 1842 to 1997. The local art organizations were mostly run by Westerners who outnumbered Chinese painters until a large migration of Chinese from Southern China during Sino-Japanese War. Innovative art colleges were established after the war. The shows organized by local artists started in the early 1960s. After a reaction against the traditional Western artistic practices of the 1940s and the 1950s, some experimental works that combined both western and eastern techniques were made. Then came the call for a return to Chinese traditional art and the creation of forms of art that Hong Kong could call its own. The trend was led by Lui Shou Kwan 呂壽琨. Some western concepts were incorporated into his Chinese ink paintings.


title: Chinese art

text: Many Chinese artists went to study western art in Paris in the early 1900s, for example: Fang Ganmin , Wu Dayu , Ong Schan Tchow , Lin Fengmian 林風眠, Yan Wenliang , Wu Guanzhong , Zao Wou-Ki . All except Zao completed their education before 1949 and returned to become leaders in the modern art movement. (Zao happened to be in Paris in 1949 and did not return.) Some Chinese artists went to stay there because of the rich international art environment, for example: Sanyu 常玉, Pang Yuliang 潘張玉良, 朱德群Chu Teh Chun. Zao, Sanyu, Pang, and Chu all had shows in Paris and the Republic. All their paintings had varying degrees of Chinese elements in them. These artists not only had a profound influence in Chinese modern art, but they also continued to engage Parisians with modern art from the East.


title: Chinese art

text: Li Tiefu 李鐵夫 (1869–1952) was an accomplished oil painter educated in Canada and the United States. He was an active participant in the revolutionary movement of Sun Yat-sen 孫中山 (1866–1925).


title: Chinese art

text: Zeng Youhe 曾佑和 (1925–2017) was born in Beijing. She started receiving international recognition in 1946, when Michael Sullivan began praising and writing about her work. Zeng moved to Honolulu in 1949 and visited Hong Kong and Taiwan in 1960. Like those of the Fifth Moon Group 五月畫會, her paintings were abstract; but the flavor of traditional Chinese ink paintings were not as pronounced.


title: Chinese art

text: Contemporary Chinese art (, Zhongguo Dangdai Yishu) often referred to as Chinese avant-garde art, continued to develop since the 1980s as an outgrowth of modern art developments post-Cultural Revolution.


title: Chinese art

text: Contemporary Chinese art fully incorporates painting, film, video, photography, and performance. Until recently, art exhibitions deemed controversial have been routinely shut down by police, and performance artists in particular faced the threat of arrest in the early 1990s. More recently there has been greater tolerance by the Chinese government, though many internationally acclaimed artists are still restricted from media exposure at home or have exhibitions ordered closed. Leading contemporary visual artists include Ai Weiwei, Cai Guoqiang, Cai Jin, Chan Shengyao, Concept 21, Ding Yi, Fang Lijun, Fu Wenjun, He Xiangyu, Huang Yan, Huang Yong Ping, Han Yajuan, Kong Bai Ji, Li Hongbo, Li Hui, Liu Bolin, Lu Shengzhong, Ma Liuming, Qiu Deshu, Qiu Shihua, Shen Fan, Shen Shaomin, Shi Jinsong, Song Dong, Li Wei, Wang Guangyi, Wenda Gu, Xu Bing, Yang Zhichao, Zhan Wang, Zheng Lianjie, Zhang Dali, Zhang Xiaogang, Zhang Huan, Zhu Yu, Wu Shaoxiang, Ma Kelu, Ding Fang, Shang Yang, Gao Minglu and Guo Jian.


title: Chinese art

text: Beginning in the late 1980s there was unprecedented exposure for younger Chinese visual artists in the west to some degree through the agency of curators based outside the country such as Hou Hanru. Local curators within the country such as Gao Minglu and critics such as Li Xianting (栗憲庭) reinforced this promotion of particular brands of painting that had recently emerged, while also spreading the idea of art as a strong social force within Chinese culture. There was some controversy as critics identified these imprecise representations of contemporary Chinese art as having been constructed out of personal preferences, a kind of programmatized artist-curator relationship that only further alienated the majority of the avant-garde from Chinese officialdom and western art market patronage.


title: Chinese art

text: Today, the market for Chinese art, both antique and contemporary, is widely reported to be among the hottest and fastest-growing in the world, attracting buyers all over the world. The "Voice of America" reported in 2006 that modern Chinese art is raking in record prices both internationally and in domestic markets, some experts even fearing the market might be overheating. "The Economist" reported that Chinese art has become the latest darling in the world market according to the record sales from Sotheby's and Christie's, the biggest fine-art auction houses.


title: Chinese art

text: Contemporary Chinese art saw record sales throughout the 2000s. In 2007, it was estimated that 5 of the world's 10 best selling living artists at art auction were from China, with artists such as Zhang Xiaogang whose works were sold for a total of $56.8 million at auction in 2007. In terms of buying-market, China overtook France in the late 2000s as the world's third-largest art market, after the United States and the United Kingdom, due to the growing middle-class in the country. Sotheby's noted that contemporary Chinese art has rapidly changed the contemporary Asian art world into one of the most dynamic sectors on the international art market. During the global economic crisis, the contemporary Asian art market and the contemporary Chinese art market experienced a slow down in late 2008. The market for Contemporary Chinese and Asian art saw a major revival in late 2009 with record level sales at Christie's.


title: Chinese art

text: For centuries largely made-up of European and American buyers, the international buying market for Chinese art has also begun to be dominated by Chinese dealers and collectors in recent years. It was reported in 2011, China has become the world's second biggest market for art and antiques, accounting for 23 percent of the world's total art market, behind the United States (which accounts for 34 percent of the world's art market). Another transformation driving the growth of the Chinese art market is the rise of a clientele no longer mostly European or American. New fortunes from countries once thought of as poor often prefer non-Western art; a large gallerist in the field has offices in both New York and Beijing, but clients mainly hailing from Latin America, Asia and the Middle East.


title: Chinese art

text: One of the areas that has revived art concentration and also commercialized the industry is the 798 Art District in Dashanzi of Beijing. The artist Zhang Xiaogang sold a 1993 painting for US$2.3 million in 2006, which included blank faced Chinese families from the Cultural Revolution era, while Yue Minjun's work "Execution" in 2007 was sold for a then record of nearly $6 million at Sotheby's. Collectors including Stanley Ho, the owner of the Macau Casinos, investment manager Christopher Tsai, and casino developer Steve Wynn, would capitalize on the art trends. Items such as Ming dynasty vases and assorted Imperial pieces were auctioned off.


title: Chinese art

text: Other art works were sold in places such as Christie's including a Chinese porcelain piece with the mark of the Qianlong Emperor sold for HKD $ $151.3 million. Sotheby's and Christie's act as major market platforms for classical Chinese porcelain art pieces to be sold, including Ming dynasty, Xuande mark and period (1426–35) Blue and White jar (Five-Clawed Dragon Print), which was auctioned for Approx. USD 19,224,491.2, through Christie's in Spring 2016 The "International Herald Tribune" reported that Chinese porcelains were fought over in the art market as "if there was no tomorrow".


title: Chinese art

text: A 1964 painting by Li Keran ""All the Mountains Blanketed in Red"" was sold for HKD $35 million. Auctions were also held at Sotheby's where Xu Beihong's 1939 masterpiece ""Put Down Your Whip"" sold for HKD $72 million. The industry is not limited to fine arts, as many other types of contemporary pieces were also sold. In 2000, a number of Chinese artists were included in Documenta and the Venice Biennale of 2003. China now has its own major contemporary art showcase with the Venice Biennale. Fuck Off was a notorious art exhibition which ran alongside the Shanghai Biennial Festival in 2000 and was curated by independent curator Feng Boyi and contemporary artist Ai Weiwei.


title: Whittaker Chambers

text: Whittaker Chambers (born Jay Vivian Chambers; April 1, 1901 – July 9, 1961) was an American writer-editor, who, after early years as a Communist Party member (1925) and Soviet spy (1932–1938), defected from the Soviet underground (1938), worked for "Time" magazine (1939–1948), and then testified about the Ware Group in what became the Hiss case for perjury (1949–1950), often referred to as the trial of the century, all described in his 1952 memoir "Witness". Afterwards, he worked as a senior editor at "National Review" (1957–1959). US President Ronald Reagan awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously in 1984.


title: Whittaker Chambers

text: Chambers was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and spent his infancy in Brooklyn. His family moved to Lynbrook, Long Island, New York State, in 1904, where he grew up and attended school. His parents were Jay Chambers and Laha Whittaker. He described his childhood as troubled because of his parents' separation and their need to care for their mentally-ill grandmother. His father was an artist and member of the Decorative Designers; his mother was last a social worker. Chambers's brother, Richard Godfrey Chambers committed suicide shortly after he had withdrawn from college at age 22. Chambers cited his brother's fate as one of many reasons that he was then drawn to communism. As he wrote, it "offered me what nothing else in the dying world had power to offer at the same intensity, faith and a vision, something for which to live and something for which to die."


title: Whittaker Chambers

text: After graduating from South Side High School in neighboring Rockville Centre in 1919, Chambers worked itinerantly in Washington and New Orleans, briefly attended Williams College and then enrolled as a day student at Columbia College of Columbia University. At Columbia, his undergraduate peers included Meyer Schapiro, Frank S. Hogan, Herbert Solow, Louis Zukofsky, Arthur F. Burns, Clifton Fadiman, Elliott V. Bell, John Gassner, Lionel Trilling (who later fictionalized him as a main character in his novel "The Middle of the Journey"), Guy Endore, and City College student poet Henry Zolinsky. In the intellectual environment of Columbia, he gained friends and respect. His professors and fellow students found him a talented writer and believed he might become a major poet or novelist.


title: Whittaker Chambers

text: In his sophomore year, Chambers joined the Boar's Head Society and wrote a play called "A Play for Puppets" for Columbia's literary magazine "The Morningside", which he edited. The work was deemed blasphemous by many students and administrators, and the controversy spread to New York City newspapers. Later, the play would be used against Chambers during his testimony against Hiss. Disheartened over the controversy, Chambers left Columbia in 1925. From Columbia, Chambers also knew Isaiah Oggins, who went into the Soviet underground a few years earlier; Chambers's wife, Esther Shemitz Chambers, knew Oggins's wife, Nerma Berman Oggins, from the Rand School of Social Science, the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union, and "The World Tomorrow".


title: Whittaker Chambers

text: In 1924, Chambers read Vladimir Lenin's "Soviets at Work" and was deeply affected by it. He now saw the dysfunctional nature of his family, he would write, as "in miniature the whole crisis of the middle class", a malaise from which communism promised liberation. Chambers's biographer Sam Tanenhaus wrote that Lenin's authoritarianism was "precisely what attracts Chambers. ... He had at last found his church." Chambers became a Marxist and, in 1925, joined the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA), then known as the Workers Party of America.


title: Whittaker Chambers

text: Chambers wrote and edited for the magazine "The New Masses" and was an editor for "The Daily Worker" newspaper from 1927 to 1929.


title: Whittaker Chambers

text: Combining his literary talents with his devotion to communism, Chambers wrote four short stories for "New Masses" in 1931 about proletarian hardship and revolt, including "Can You Make Out Their Voices?", which was considered by critics as one of the best pieces of fiction of American communism. Hallie Flanagan co-adapted and produced it as a play entitled "Can You Hear Their Voices?" (see Bibliography of Whittaker Chambers), staged across America and in many other countries. Chambers also worked as a translator, his works including the English version of Felix Salten's 1923 novel "Bambi, A Life in the Woods".


title: Whittaker Chambers

text: Chambers was recruited to join the "communist underground" and began his career as a spy, working for a GRU spy ring headed by Alexander Ulanovsky, also known as Ulrich. Later, his main handler was Josef Peters, who was replaced by CPUSA General Secretary Earl Browder with Rudy Baker. Chambers claimed that Peters introduced him to Harold Ware (although he later denied Peters had ever been introduced to Ware, and also testified to HUAC that he, Chambers, never knew Ware). Chambers claimed that Ware was head of a communist underground cell in Washington that reportedly included the following:


title: Whittaker Chambers

text: Apart from Marion Bachrach, these individuals were all members of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal administration. Chambers worked in Washington as an organizer in communists in the city and as a courier between New York and Washington for stolen documents, which were delivered to Boris Bykov, the GRU station chief.


title: Whittaker Chambers

text: Using the codename "Karl" or "Carl", Chambers served during the mid-1930s as a courier between various covert sources and Soviet intelligence. In addition to the Ware group mentioned above, other sources that Chambers alleged to have dealt with included the following:


title: Whittaker Chambers

text: Chambers carried on his espionage activities from 1932 until 1937 or 1938 even while his faith in communism was waning. He became increasingly disturbed by Joseph Stalin's Great Purge, which began in 1936. He was also fearful for his own life since he had noted the murder in Switzerland of Ignace Reiss, a high-ranking Soviet spy who had broken with Stalin, and the disappearance of Chambers's friend and fellow spy Juliet Stuart Poyntz in the United States. Poyntz had vanished in 1937, shortly after she had visited Moscow and returned disillusioned with the communist cause because of the Stalinist Purges.


title: Whittaker Chambers

text: Chambers ignored several orders that he travel to Moscow since he worried that he might be "purged". He also started concealing some of the documents he collected from his sources. He planned to use them, along with several rolls of microfilm photographs of documents, as a "life preserver" to prevent the Soviets from killing him and his family.


title: Whittaker Chambers

text: In 1938, Chambers broke with communism and took his family into hiding. He stored the "life preserver" at the home of his wife's sister, whose son Nathan Levine was Chambers' lawyer. Initially, he had no plans to give information on his espionage activities to the U.S. government. His espionage contacts were his friends, and he had no desire to inform on them.


title: Whittaker Chambers

text: In his examination of Chambers's conversion from the left to the right, author Daniel Oppenheimer noted that Chambers substituted his passion for communism with a passion for God and saw the world in black-and-white terms both before and after his defection. In his autobiography, Chambers presented his devotion to communism as a reason for living, but after his defection, he saw his actions as being part of an "absolute evil".


title: Whittaker Chambers

text: The August 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact drove Chambers to take action against the Soviet Union. In September 1939, at the urging of the anticommunist Russian-born journalist Isaac Don Levine, Chambers and Levine met with Assistant Secretary of State Adolf A. Berle. Levine had introduced Chambers to Walter Krivitsky, who was already informing American and British authorities about Soviet agents who held posts in both governments. Krivitsky told Chambers that it was their duty to inform. Chambers agreed to reveal what he knew on the condition of immunity from prosecution. During the meeting, which took place at Berle's home, Woodley Mansion, in Washington, Chambers named several current and former government employees as spies or communist sympathizers. Many names mentioned held relatively minor posts or were already under suspicion. Some names, however, were more significant and surprising: Alger Hiss, his brother Donald Hiss, and Laurence Duggan, who were all respected, mid-level officials in the State Department, and Lauchlin Currie, a special assistant to Franklin Roosevelt. Another person named, Vincent Reno, had worked on a top secret bombsight project at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds.


title: Whittaker Chambers

text: Berle found Chambers's information tentative, unclear, and uncorroborated. He took the information to the White House, but President Franklin Roosevelt dismissed it to which Berle made little if any objection. Berle kept his notes, however, which were later used as evidence during Hiss's perjury trials.


title: Whittaker Chambers

text: Berle notified the Federal Bureau of Investigation of Chambers's information in March 1940. In February 1941, Krivitsky was found dead in his hotel room. Police ruled the death a suicide, but it was widely speculated that Krivitsky had been killed by Soviet intelligence. Worried that the Soviets might try to kill Chambers too, Berle again told the FBI about his interview with Chambers. The FBI interviewed Chambers in May 1942 and June 1945 but took no immediate action in line with the political orientation of the United States, which viewed the potential threat from the Soviet Union as minor compared to that of Nazi Germany. Only in November 1945, when Elizabeth Bentley defected and corroborated much of Chambers's story, would the FBI begin to take Chambers seriously.


title: Whittaker Chambers

text: During the Berle meeting, Chambers had come out of hiding after a year and joined the staff of "Time" (April 1939). He landed a cover story within a month on James Joyce's latest book, "Finnegans Wake". He started at the back of the magazine, reviewing books and film with James Agee and then Calvin Fixx. When Fixx suffered a heart attack in October 1942, Wilder Hobson succeeded him as Chambers's assistant editor in Arts & Entertainment. Other writers working for Chambers in that section included novelist Nigel Dennis, future "New York Times Book Review" editor Harvey Breit, and poets Howard Moss and Weldon Kees.


title: Whittaker Chambers

text: A struggle had arisen between those, like Theodore H. White and Richard Lauterbach, who raised criticism of what they saw as the elitism, corruption and ineptitude of Chiang Kai-shek's regime in China and advocated greater co-operation with Mao's Red Army in the struggle against Japanese imperialism, and Chambers and others like Willi Schlamm who adhered to a perspective that was staunchly pro-Chiang, anticommunist, and both later joined the founding editorial board of William F. Buckley, Jr.'s "National Review". "Time" founder Henry Luce, who grew up in China and was a personal friend of Chiang and his wife, Soong Mei-ling, came down squarely on the side of Chambers to the point that White complained that his stories were being censored and even suppressed in their entirety, and he left "Time" shortly after the war as a result.


title: Whittaker Chambers

text: In 1940, William Saroyan lists Fixx among "contributing editors" at "Time" in Saroyan's play, "Love's Old Sweet Song". Luce promoted him senior editor in either summer 1942 (Weinstein) or September 1943 (Tanenhaus) and became a member of "Time" "Senior Group", which determined editorial policy, in December 1943.


title: Whittaker Chambers

text: Chambers, close colleagues, and many staff members in the 1930s helped elevate "Time" and have been called "interstitial intellectuals" by the historian Robert Vanderlan. His colleague John Hersey described them as follows:


title: Whittaker Chambers

text: "Time" was in an interesting phase; an editor named Tom Matthews had gathered a brilliant group of writers, including James Agee, Robert Fitzgerald, Whittaker Chambers, Robert Cantwell, Louis Kronenberger, and Calvin Fixx. ... They were dazzling. "Time" style was still very hokey—"backward ran sentences till reeled the mind"—but I could tell, even as a neophyte, who had written each of the pieces in the magazine, because each of these writers had such a distinctive voice.


title: Whittaker Chambers

text: By early 1948, Chambers had become one of the best known writer-editors at "Time". First had come his scathing commentary "The Ghosts on the Roof" (March 5, 1945) on the Yalta Conference in which Hiss partook. Subsequent cover-story essays profiled Marian Anderson, Arnold J. Toynbee, Rebecca West and Reinhold Niebuhr. The cover story on Marian Anderson ("Religion: In Egypt Land", December 30, 1946) proved so popular that the magazine broke its rule of non-attribution in response to readers' letters:


title: Whittaker Chambers

text: Most Time cover stories are written and edited by the regular staffs of the section in which they appear. Certain cover stories, that present special difficulties or call for a special literary skill, are written by Senior Editor Whittaker Chambers.


title: Whittaker Chambers

text: In a 1945 letter to "Time" colleague Charles Wertenbaker, Time-Life deputy editorial director John Shaw Billings said of Chambers, "Whit puts on the best show in words of any writer we've ever had ... a superb technician, particularly skilled in the mosaic art of putting a "Time" section together." Chambers was at the height of his career when the Hiss case broke later that year.


title: Whittaker Chambers

text: Meanwhile, Chambers and his family became Quakers, attending Pipe Creek Friends Meetinghouse near his Maryland farm.


title: Whittaker Chambers

text: On August 3, 1948, Chambers was called to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), where he gave the names of individuals he said were part of the underground "Ware group" in the late 1930s, including Alger Hiss. He once again named Hiss as a member of the Communist Party but did not yet make any accusations of espionage. In subsequent sessions, Hiss testified and initially denied that he knew anyone by the name of Chambers, but on seeing him in person and after it became clear that Chambers knew details about Hiss's life, Hiss said that he had known Chambers under the name "George Crosley". Hiss denied that he had ever been a communist, however. Since Chambers still presented no evidence, the committee had initially been inclined to take the word of Hiss on the matter. However, a committee member, Richard Nixon, received secret information from the FBI that had led him to pursue the issue. When it issued its report, HUAC described Hiss's testimony as "vague and evasive".


title: Whittaker Chambers

text: The country quickly became divided over Hiss and Chambers. President Harry S. Truman, not pleased with the allegation that the man who had presided over the United Nations Charter Conference was a communist, dismissed the case as a "red herring".


title: Whittaker Chambers

text: In the atmosphere of increasing anticommunism that would later be termed McCarthyism, many conservatives viewed the Hiss case as emblematic of what they saw as Democrats' laxity towards the danger of communist infiltration and influence in the State Department. Many liberals, in turn, saw the Hiss case as part of the desperation of the Republican Party to regain the office of president since it had been out of power for 16 years. Truman also issued Executive Order 9835, which initiated a program of loyalty reviews for federal employees in 1947.


title: Whittaker Chambers

text: Hiss filed a $75,000 libel suit against Chambers on October 8, 1948. Under pressure from Hiss's lawyers, Chambers finally retrieved his envelope of evidence and presented it to the HUAC after it had subpoenaed them. It contained four notes in Hiss's handwriting, 65 typewritten copies of State Department documents and five strips of microfilm, some of which contained photographs of State Department documents. The press came to call these the "Pumpkin Papers" since Chambers had briefly hidden the microfilm in a hollowed-out pumpkin. The documents indicated that Hiss knew Chambers long after mid-1936, when Hiss said he had last seen "Crosley", and also that Hiss had engaged in espionage with Chambers. Chambers explained his delay in producing the evidence as an effort to spare an old friend from more trouble than necessary. Until October 1948, Chambers had repeatedly stated that Hiss had not engaged in espionage, even when Chambers testified under oath. Chambers was forced to testify at the Hiss trials that he had committed perjury several times, which reduced his credibility in the eyes of his critics.


title: Whittaker Chambers

text: The five rolls of 35 mm film known as the "pumpkin papers" were thought until late 1974 to be locked in HUAC files. The independent researcher Stephen W. Salant, an economist at the University of Michigan, sued the U.S. Justice Department in 1975 when his request for access to them under the Freedom of Information Act was denied. On July 31, 1975, as a result of this lawsuit and follow-on suits filed by Peter Irons and by Alger Hiss and William Reuben, the Justice Department released copies of the "pumpkin papers" that had been used to implicate Hiss. One roll of film turned out to be totally blank because of overexposure, two others are faintly-legible copies of nonclassified Navy Department documents relating to such subjects as life rafts and fire extinguishers, and the remaining two are photographs of the State Department documents introduced by the prosecution at the two Hiss trials, relating to US-German relations in the late 1930s.


title: Whittaker Chambers

text: That story, however, as reported by "The New York Times" in the 1970s, contains only a partial truth. The blank roll had been mentioned by Chambers in his autobiography, "Witness". However, in addition to innocuous farm reports, the documents on the other pumpkin patch microfilms also included "confidential memos sent from overseas embassies to diplomatic staff in Washington, D.C." Worse, those memos had originally been transmitted in code, which, thanks to their presumable possession of both coded originals and the translations (claimed by Chambers, to be forwarded by Hiss), the Soviets now could easily understand.


title: Whittaker Chambers

text: In taped recordings of President Nixon on July 1, 1971, he admitted that he had not checked the Pumpkin Papers prior to their use and he felt that the Justice Department was out to exonerate Hiss and a federal grand jury would indict Nixon's ally Chambers for perjury. The FBI continued investigating Hiss's innocence into 1953.


title: Whittaker Chambers

text: Hiss was indicted for two counts of perjury relating to testimony he had given before a federal grand jury the previous December. He had denied giving any documents to Chambers and testified that he had not seen Chambers after mid-1936.


title: Whittaker Chambers

text: Hiss was tried twice for perjury. The first trial, in June 1949, ended with the jury deadlocked 8–4 for conviction. In addition to Chambers's testimony, a government expert testified that other papers typed on a typewriter belonging to the Hiss family matched the secret papers produced by Chambers. An impressive array of character witnesses appeared on behalf of Hiss: two Supreme Court justices, Felix Frankfurter and Stanley Reed, the former Democratic presidential nominee John W. Davis, and the future Democratic presidential nominee Adlai Stevenson. Chambers, on the other hand, was attacked by Hiss's attorneys as "an enemy of the Republic, a blasphemer of Christ, a disbeliever in God, with no respect for matrimony or motherhood". In the second trial, Hiss's defense produced a psychiatrist who characterized Chambers as a "psychopathic personality" and "a pathological liar".


title: Whittaker Chambers

text: The second trial ended in January 1950 with Hiss being found guilty on both counts of perjury. He was sentenced to five years in prison.


title: Whittaker Chambers

text: Chambers had resigned from "Time" in December 1948. After the Hiss case, he wrote a few articles for "Fortune", "Life", and "Look" magazines.


title: Whittaker Chambers

text: In 1951, during the HUAC hearings, William Spiegel of Baltimore identified a photo of "Carl Schroeder" as Chambers while Spiegel was describing his involvement with David Zimmerman, a spy in Chambers's network.


title: Whittaker Chambers

text: In 1952, Chambers's book "Witness" was published to widespread acclaim. It was a combination of autobiography and a warning about the dangers of communism. Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. called it "a powerful book". Ronald Reagan credited the book as the inspiration behind his conversion from a New Deal Democrat to a conservative Republican. "Witness" was a bestseller for more than a year and helped to pay off Chambers's legal debts, but bills lingered ("as Odysseus was beset by a ghost").


title: Whittaker Chambers

text: "Witness" became a canonical text of conservatism. Unfortunately, it injected conservatism with a sour, whiney, complaining, crybaby populism. It is the screechy and dominant tone of the loutish faux conservatism that today is erasing [William F.] Buckley's legacy of infectious cheerfulness and unapologetic embrace of high culture. Chambers wallowed in cloying sentimentality and curdled resentment about "the plain men and women"—"my people, humble people, strong in common sense, in common goodness"—enduring the "musk of snobbism" emanating from the "socially formidable circles" of the "nicest people" produced by "certain collegiate eyries".


title: Whittaker Chambers

text: In 1955, William F. Buckley Jr. started the magazine "National Review", and Chambers worked there as senior editor, publishing articles there for a little over a year and a half (October 1957 – June 1959). The most widely cited article to date is a scathing review, "Big Sister is Watching You", of Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged".


title: Whittaker Chambers

text: In 1959, after resigning from "National Review", Chambers and his wife embarked on a visit to Europe, the highlight of which was a meeting with Arthur Koestler and Margarete Buber-Neumann at Koestler's home in Austria. That fall, he recommenced studies at Western Maryland College (now McDaniel College) in Westminster, Maryland.


title: Whittaker Chambers

text: In 1930 or 1931, Chambers married the artist Esther Shemitz (1900–1986). Shemitz, who had studied at the Art Students League and integrated herself into New York City's intellectual circles, met Chambers at the 1926 textile strike at Passaic, New Jersey. They then underwent a courtship that faced resistance from her mentor comrade Grace Hutchins. Shemitz identified as "a pacifist rather than a revolutionary". In the 1920s, she worked for "The World Tomorrow", a pacifist magazine.


title: Whittaker Chambers

text: The couple had two children, Ellen and John, during the 1930s. Some Communist leadership expected professional revolutionists to go childless, the couple refused, a choice he cited as part of his gradual disillusionment with communism. His daughter Ellen died in 2017.


title: Whittaker Chambers

text: In 1978, Allen Weinstein's "Perjury" revealed that the FBI has a copy of a letter in which Chambers described homosexual liaisons during the 1930s. The letter copy states that Chambers gave up the practices in 1938 when he left the underground, which he attributed to his newfound Christianity. The letter has remained controversial from many perspectives.


title: Whittaker Chambers

text: Chambers died of a heart attack on July 9, 1961, at his farm in Westminster, Maryland. He had had angina since the age of 38 and had several heart attacks.


title: Whittaker Chambers

text: In 2007, John Chambers stated that a library with his father's papers should open in 2008 on the Chambers farm in Maryland. He indicated that the facility will be available to all scholars and that a separate library, rather than one within an established university, is needed to guarantee open access.


title: Whittaker Chambers

text: In 2011, author Elena Maria Vidal interviewed David Chambers about his grandfather's legacy. Versions of the interview were published in the "National Observer" and "The American Conservative".