The First Emperor (China's Terracotta Army), British Museum

The eponymous 'first emperor' is Ying Zheng, - first in the sense that he was the first to unify the vast area that came to form the basis of modern China (whose very name derives from his original kingdom at the centre of it Qin - pronounced 'chin') - first also in the sense of foremost, first and uppermost, which was how he saw himself: as illustrated in his adoption of the religious title Qin Shighuangdi (First August Thearch of Qin) - to be echoed perhaps unwittingly a thousand or so years later in the title of the Holy Roman Emperor one wonders?

Ask anyone at random on the street about Ying Zheng or Qin Shighuangdi and as amusing as the responses are likely to be, you will almost certainly not get a very high hit rate in terms of accuracy (unless of course you are in Great Russell Street in London, home of the British Museum) or outside one of the major oriental studies departments up and down the country. Most of us do not know the names.

Ask about Xi'an and a few more people might recognise it.

Ask about the Terracotta Army and almost everyone will know.

Rightly so. The remains discovered by a peasant farmer in a field in Xi'an in 1974 have led to the largest archaeological site in the world; one which over thirty years later is still throwing up new discoveries and surprises; one whose full excavation is estimated to take another 20 or 30 years on the basis of current assumptions about its extent…which to my mind is quite possibly grossly under-estimated.

The image of the terracotta army - those serried ranks of infantry, archers and cavalry, each apparently individually sculpted, life size - has been ingrained on the brains of everyone born six about 1960 who has the remotest interest in either history or culture or art or the orient. For many it is the one and only overwhelming reason to consider visiting China. For others it is one among many. For most, who have actually stopped to ponder the whole idea: the why and the how of its creation, the miracle of its survival, the happenstance of its rediscovery, the implications for what else might be out there that we know not yet….for us, the chance to actually see even a few of these figures (in advance of an as yet theoretical trip to see the site itself) is not one to be passed up on.

Thus the British Museum in cahoots with Morgan Stanley have brought the warriors to Britain. A few of them at least.

Let's get the cynicism out of the way first: Morgan Stanley are sponsoring this exhibition because of their ongoing business links with China. China are being very positive and open about sharing their culture at the moment because they have an Olympics to stage in a country whose human rights record is, even now, at best, frankly, unacceptable. The British Museum are clearly going to achieve a significant income from the event and associated merchandising.

Why does none of that matter? Because…
- Without the upfront funding from the sponsor it simply would not have happened. I cannot begin to imagine what these artefacts might be worth on an open market. The logistics of shipping them and the insurance premium that presumably accompanied that exercise, I am prepared to imagine were in figures with more than a few noughts on the end.
- Whatever one feels about China's record on all sorts of things…the Empire (for in truth China never stopped being an Empire, all communist endeavours aside at heart it is still a collection of states comprised of different traditions and races, & pray sanity may prevail that their heritage be allowed to survive)…the Empire has produced innovations, artistic and technical, beautiful and brutal, that have survived millennia and still influence our lives today, their ancient philosophies still have a role in modern western lifestyles…we should not discourage any attempt (however motivated) to share the raw data of the culture, it's actual artefacts, in the wider world
- Should an individual Museum make a vast (or even only 'significant') profit from mounting such a one-off display of what you might argue is actually part of the global heritage of all humanity? In my view: yes. I don't know enough about the intricacies of museum funding in this country, but I suspect not all of that revenue will remain the BM's to do with as it will. I would imagine that there is a central pooling of income and expenditure across most of our public museums and galleries. Be that as it may - whether it is shared or retained - one fact remains: it is high profile exhibitions of this type that subsidise the otherwise free access we can enjoy to some of the greatest art and historical relics in the world. This improves access to such treasures, not just to those who simply could not otherwise afford the entry fee, but also for those of us who easily could, but wouldn't pay it if we only had half an hour to spare…but knowing it's free might spend that spare half-hour seeing a tiny fraction of one gallery.

OK ~ politics over ~ back to the exhibition.

I came as someone who simply could not miss this: China in general and Xi'an in particular being very high on my wish-list. I also came with someone who has been on site, and has a professional's eye in assessing the 'experience' of such visits and events. Both of which could have influenced my experience, but which could equally have cancelled each other out.

THE EXHIBITION

It seems churlish to say that I was somewhat underwhelmed by the exhibition. Perhaps I expected more than was possible.* Perhaps it is that I so badly want to see the SCALE of the thing…and that is what is sadly missing from this snapshot. Scale.

There are over 7,000 warriors - the most famous of the findings - but beyond that, there are the civic officials, the birds and musicians, the armoury, the horses and the carriages. In the knowledge of that, the fact that what is presented here - 20 figures in total - cannot help but somewhat fade almost into insignificance.

The awe that one imagines and comes to expect from seeing the films of the site itself, does not arrive.
To that extent it is a production that makes you work to appreciate it. You really do have to force yourself to stop and think about what you are looking at. You have to consider that in Xi'an you would not get anywhere near this close. These fragile figures, created sometime between the demise of Greece and the rise of Rome, and buried for virtually all of that time, stand there - apparently all pieced back together from fragments, but some almost seemingly intact as fired - are within touching distance. Some are glass-cased, but the main display is not.

The detail is astonishing. The workings on the sole of the archer's sandal. The hair plaits. The girth straps on the horses.

The tassel at the carriage window. [This is a modern replica as the original is too fragile to travel but one assumes it is a true representation.]

Musculature. Expression. The individuality of the pieces is evident, even though it is now known that they are not specific sculptures of actual individuals; it is clear how the mass production technique would work, with bodies being cast in sections and those sections being mixed and matched and then hand finished. The longer you linger and look, the more times you circle the centrepiece the more you spot - details of armour or lack of it, hairstyles, facial features.

So what you do then get is a different kind of scale. You get to realise that here you are "up close and personal" with these guys - not just the warriors, but the acrobat, the strongman, the musicians, the civil servants.

You can stand right next to them - to a limited extent walk between them.

What you get is an idea of not just the craftsmanship, the knowledge which led to the hole in the side of a horse, to stop it exploding when fired, of the size of piece that could be reliably reproduced time and time again with little wastage; you get to see the fact that sometimes they got it wrong & what some of that wastage would have looked like…but you also get a reminder that somewhere in this production line, either at the beginning in carving the moulds or at the end in hand-finishing the detail, were not just artisans, but true artists with feel and flair for the representation of the human and the animal form.

A modern replica in gaudy colour makes you wonder what the whole project would have looked like upon completion. If it makes us wonder…what impact would it have had at the time? None - apparently. It was never intended to be seen.

It has been suggested to me that all of those involved in its creation were brutally slaughtered to preserve its secrets. If that were so…how far out into the circles of those involved would that need to be, to be effective? All of those involved in the digging of the clay, the sculpting, the firing, the painting, the placing of figures in situ…all of their families and acquaintances…all of those who carried out the executions? Whether there is truth in that theory or not…it cannot have been remotely successful if the other theory holds true: namely that the genuine bronze weaponry that the army held was all looted in the hundred years that followed the death of the Emperor. The figures themselves, it is believed, were damaged at that time, some of the corridors deliberately or otherwise destroyed by fire.

Yes, there are human remains on the site associated with the time of the building and casting of the figures. An estimated 700,000 people (conscripts mostly) worked on the building of the tomb and the grave-goods. It took years of hard work. That people died in the course of it, doesn't even necessarily speak of specific brutality - though given the standards of the time it can be assumed. There would have deaths a-plenty without any specific plot to murder everyone in the know. Nearly three-quarters of a million people is an awful lot to kill and keep the deaths, and motivation for them silent.

*In the midst of writing this review, I have discovered the true cause of my unexpected reaction. A BBC team followed the Museum's team of curators and designers to give us the inside story on the putting together of the display. Having now watched the programmes (a week too late from my point of view - I wish they'd shown them before the opening!) I understand that I had fundamentally missed the point of the entire exhibition.

It isn't about "China's Terracotta Army" at all. It is about Ying Zheng - his role in building what became modern China. His beliefs about his own immortality and/or afterlife and the results of those in the monumental remains are only a small part of the story.

How and why did I get this so wrong?

Firstly: a primary mistake by the Museum's marketing team. The exhibition is entitled "The First Emperor: China's Terracotta Army" - which implies that the warriors specifically and the Xi'an site generally is the prime focus, when it isn't. Of course the 20 pieces from Xi'an are the stars of the show…but their role is still overplayed given what the curators were trying to achieve.

Secondly: the press coverage made the same mistake. All the pre-visit reviews I read, again emphasised the importance of getting these figures here.

Finally: arriving in the exhibition arena we were told "Don't try to follow a specific walk-around, we don't have one. Go any which way you want." I'm not sure whether that was an after-thought in crowd control…or whether the original plan was not to have a 'route' through. Either way, it was a mistake. The tendency to wander at will increases your chance of missing something, and certainly means that you lose the whole thread of what I now know the curator wanted to convey: who this man was, what he achieved and how, and what he believed about what would happen afterwards.

There isn't much the BM can do about the first two errors ~ I'd urge them to reconsider the 'route' idea.

NOT JUST THE WARRIORS THEN

The archer kneels at the top of the stairs facing you as you enter, just as the designer envisaged. But of course, he completely missed the point that there'd be a crowd of people between your viewpoint and that display case. Ah well, the idea was sound.

There are other enticements along the way…but the main display is tantalisingly out of reach through the archway and it is tempting to rush towards it. That is the effect of the misplaced advertising. Resist it. Take your time over the lead up. Try to understand what the man achieved, to understand the man.

Consider the weights and measures; contemplate the effect on language; the achievement of the first wall (which had more in common with Hadrian's earthworks than with the modern Chinese equivalent); the civil service and bureaucracy that he virtually invented, the standardisation of armaments, of carriage gauges (details that were to exercise armies and railway companies centuries later). Pay attention to the history. Examine the beauty in the smaller (and some not so small) items: the bells, the bowls and vases. Realise that until this exhibition was collated, the BM had only three small pieces from this empire.

DESIGN & SPACE

If you haven't seen the BBC programme and can find a way of doing so before you visit the exhibition: do. We were very impressed with the space and the way it has been used. I am even more so, in the light of the knowledge of what it took to achieve it.

The gallery is mounted "above" the reading room. That it is within the reading room is inescapable, but the designers have succeeded in losing the fact that they have had to build above the reading desks (which are part of the listed structure and cannot be dismantled) but have managed to maintain the tomb-like atmosphere they wanted.

Be warned…it is very dim in there.

This is partly to protect the exhibits, but mainly I suspect for effect: one which takes a little getting used to, but on the whole works well.

PRACTICALITIES

The British Museum is located in Great Russell Street, London - within a short walking distance of Tottenham Court Road tube station on the Central line.

The exhibition runs until 6 April 2008.

Tickets are priced at £12 (plus £1.50 booking fee if you book in advance). Advance booking is advisable as the event is heavily subscribed, however 500 tickets will be released to public sale at 9.45 each morning for purchase in person at the museum. Tickets are for timed entry.

Our timed tickets were for a stated entry time of 16:10hrs, but upon arrival at 15:50hrs, there was no queue and we were allowed free access. The gallery was busy, but not uncomfortably so - a late afternoon entry might therefore be worth considering.

Allow at least an hour for the viewing.

For more detailed information on access and other events at the BM: see www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk or call +44 (0)207 323 8000

FINAL ANALYSIS

"The First Emperor" is quite an achievement, stylistically and in terms of what it tells.

It has been marred by mis-emphasis in its own marketing, which might leave some visitors disappointed by their experience.

Even given my own responses to it, I am glad I did not let the opportunity pass by. For one thing, it means that when I finally get to Xi'an I will have a more detailed vision of the terracotta figures to imprint on the vastness of the array as seen within the on-site museum.

For another I will arrive knowing that the legacy of Qin Shighuangdi is not the imagined majesties of the as-yet unexcavated tomb, or the known miracles of the warriors and other figures, but the very structure and culture of China itself.

Be prepared, therefore, not to be awestruck…but to be further intrigued.

© Lesley Mason
hiker @ ciao.co.uk
18.9.07