Upon leading a victorious rebellion against the
foreign Mongul rulers of the Yuan Dynasty, a
peasant named Zhu Yuanzhang seized control of
China and founded the Ming Dynasty in 1368.
As emperor, he founded his capital at Nanjing
and adopted the name Hongwu as his reign title.
Hongwu, literally meaning “vast military,” reflects
the increased prestige of the army during the
Ming Dynasty. Due to the very realistic threat
still posed by the Mongols, Hongwu realized that
a strong military was essential to Chinese
prosperity. Thus, the orthodox Confucian view
that the military was an inferior class to be ruled
over by an elite class of scholars was
reconsidered. During the Ming Dynasty, China
proper was reunited after centuries of foreign
incursion and occupation. Ming troops
controlled Manchuria, and the Korean Joseon
Dynasty respected the authority of the Ming
rulers, at least nominally.
Like the founders of the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-
220 A.D.), Hongwu was extremely suspicious of
the educated courtiers that advised him and,
fearful that they might attempt to overthrow him,
he successfully consolidated control of all aspect
of government. The strict authoritarian control
Hongwu wielded over the affairs of the country
was due in part to the centralized system of
government he inherited from the Monguls and
largely kept intact. However, Hongwu replaced
the Mongul bureaucrats who had ruled the
country for nearly a century with native Chinese
administrators. He also reinstituted the
Confucian examination system that tested
would-be civic officials on their knowledge of
literature and philosophy. Unlike the Song
Dynasty (960-1279 A.D.), which received most of
its taxes from mercantile commerce, the Ming
economy was based primarily on agriculture,
reflecting both the peasant roots of its founder
as well as the Confucian belief that trade was
ignoble and parasitic.
Culturally, the greatest innovation of the Ming
Dynasty was the introduction of the novel.
Developed from the folk tales of traditional
storytellers, these works were transcribed in the
everyday vernacular language of the people.
Advances in printmaking and the increasing
population of urban dwellers largely contributed
to the success of these books. Architecturally,
the most famous monument of the Ming Dynasty
is surely the complex of temples and palaces
known as the Forbidden City that was
constructed in Beijing after the third ruler of the
Ming Dynasty, Emperor Yongle, moved the
capital there. Today, the Forbidden Palace
remains one of the hallmarks of traditional
Chinese architecture and is one of the most
popular tourist destinations in the vast nation.
Glazed sculptural tile are today considered one of
the hallmarks of classical Chinese architecture.
However, despite their popularity in modern
times, they were relatively scarce until after the
end of the T’ang Dynasty. Even then, during the
Song and Yuan Dynasties, they were still
infrequently used. It was not until the rise of the
Ming Dynasty that glazed sculptural tiles became
a popular decorative devise extensively
employed in temples, altars, imperial palaces,
and gardens. Beijing became the center of glazed
architectural tile production during the Ming
period, and colorfully decorated pagodas began
to sprout up around this region. Eaves and
entryways were decorated with vibrant
sculptures that served both decorative and
sometimes religious purposes. On temples and
palaces, representations of mounted warriors
and snarling dragons were meant to ward off
evildoers, of both the physical and spiritual kind.
This group of glazed terracotta tiles would have
been one of the centerpieces in the decorative
scheme of a Ming Dynasty temple. Brilliantly
colored in rich green, bright turquoise, and
yellow ochre hues, these tiles depict a pair of
winged phoenixes flying against a background of
swirling foliage. One of the earliest known
example of the phoenix occurring in Chinese art
dates back to the Warring States Period (475-
221 B.C.). Like the dragon, the phoenix is one of
the most important motifs in Chinese imperial
art and architecture. A composite creature that
features the head of the golden pheasant, the
beak of the parrot, the body of the mandarin
duck, the wings of the roc, the feathers of the
peacock and the legs of the crane, the phoenix
was the sovereign of all birds and the ruler of
the skies. This pair of tiles is but one part of a
larger frieze of glazed tiles that would have once
decorated the interior or exterior of the temple
structure. When we imagine the entire temple
structure covered in such tiles, from the walls to
the roof, the glory of Ming Dynasty China
becomes apparent.
