Tang Dynasty Furniture

The Chinese furniture went through a long development course, from the low-height furniture (mat-level furniture) to high sitting and lying furniture. According to the scholar's studies, the history of Chinese furniture can be divided into three periods, which are the enlightenment period, the development period and the maturity period. Tang Dynasty (618-907AD) furniture was in the second period and it can be regarded as a breakthrough during the development period of Chinese furniture history. This thesis attempts to discuss the categories and forms of the furniture in Tang Dynasty and it's changes in the history of Chinese furniture, mainly based on pictorial materials, such as the Dunhuang Murals in the Dunhuang Grottoes, Tang Dynasty's tomb murals, scroll paintings, also supported with historical literatures and funerary objects. The thesis compartmentalizes Tang furniture into five categories: furniture for sitting and lying, for putting and leaning, for comparting the spaces, for storing, and for hanging.Tang Dynasty furniture inherited the style of Han dynasty. Long-leg seats (furnitures) sprang up to meet the style of living which was influenced by foreign civilization. Therefore, the furniture which followed Han style , such as Chuang (bed) and Ta (platform), mainly had two forms: four feet or kun-men (壸门) feet in Tang dynasty. However, the height of them increased under the influence of the long-leg seat.The higher seats had the greatest development in the Tang Dynasty. At sometime during the Tang dynasty, higher seats first started to appear among the Chinese elite and their usage soon spread to all levels of society. They could be seen in most of the murals and paintings with various types such as, chairs with backrest, chairs with backrest and armrest, chairs with Chutou (protruding ends) or without protruding ends and also the elaborate roundback arm chair. The varieties of stools were even richer. The Yueyadeng (stool in crescent shape) which has two types, can be regarded as the most distinctive higher furnitures in Tang Dynasty. The frusta (Dun), at that time, has round shape, corset shape etc. These higher seats in Tang Dynasty were mainly influenced by two kinds of foreign cultures: Buddhism and minorities from the northwest of China. A folding chair known as Huchuang (a foreign bed), from the northwestern minorities, which was introduced to China during the Han Dynasty, had impacted Tang dynasty seats enormously.The table and desk of Tang dynasty continued growing in its size and increasing in its height. Large sized tables mainly used for banquets could provide spaces for more than ten people. We also saw the higher feet tables in the murals and paintings was almost the same as the tables we are using nowadays. The Qiaotou-an (A desk with everted flanges surface) were manifolded evidently, has Shan xing qu zu (bar-shaped bended feet) and Shan xing zhi zu (bar-shaped straight feet), and the bar-shaped straight feet desk were seen more often than other types.With the higher level of seating came other types of furniture, including benches, long rectangular tables, folding screens, bins and clothes racks.It is difficult to study Tang dynasty furniture with the infrequent relics. Nevertheless, the Shosoin in Japan have a few pieces of Tang furniture which could be helpful. According to the furniture in Shosoin, Tang furniture could be made of animal materials, vegetation materials and mineral materials etc. This provided us with credible information to take a further study on Tang dynasty furniture.