Huashan Rock Art of China shines on Milan: the China Pavilion at Expo Milan 2015 features the famous Huashan rock paintings.

An article by Marzia De Giuli and Song Jian on  shanghaidaily.com - Huashan Rock Paintings show unique art to Milan Expo visitors - reports on the China Pavilion at Expo Milan 2015 featuring the famous Huashan rock art, and represented by Li Kang, Vice Governor of China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

The Huashan rock art site of China is located in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, neighbouring with Vietnam. It is generally believed that the rock art at the Huashan site was created between the Warring States Period (403 - 221 BCE) and Eastern Han dynasty (26 - 220 CE), by an ethnic group named Luo Yue. 

The Huashan rock art site may be considered to be one of the most impressive pre-Historic painted panels of the world. This area is well-known for its picturesque landscapes, featuring high limestone mountains. About eighty-one rock art sites have been discovered throughout the valley; the Huashan rock art site is arguably one of the most spectacular. Huashan is called 'Pay Laiz' in the local Zhuang language, which literally means 'a mountain with colourful paintings'. It is situated at the south-western corner of a series of limestone peaks. At the foot of the mountain the wide and calm Mingjiang River, a tributary of the Zuojiang River, approaches from the south-west and makes a sharp turn to the north-west. 

Large crowds enjoyed the opening day of the Guangxi Week at the Italian World Exposition featuring the Huashan Rock Painting Exhibition at the China Pavilion, with reproductions of the ancient art.

As Gao Qian states in the Bradshaw Foundation's section on Huashan, on the precipitous western cliff of the Huashan mountain, which overhangs the running water, more than 1800 rock art motifs are painted, covering an area of more than 4000 square metres. It is thought to be the largest rock art panel in the world (Liu 2006: 23). The paintings of the Huashan rock art site are highly standardised. All the images are monochrome, painted in a brownish-red colour, and represented in two dimensions without a sense of perspective or depth of field . In contrast to other rock art of south-western China, and other rock art traditions from greater China and elsewhere in the world, 'scenes' of daily-life activities, such as those described as 'hunting', 'herding', 'gathering' and 'battling', are not found in the Huashan panel. Only a few motif types are depicted; these are mainly anthropomorphs, zoomorphs and figures supposedly depicting implements, such as 'swords', 'daggers', 'drums' and 'bells'. More than 85% of the motifs are anthropomorphous (Qin et al. 1987: 158). These figures are represented either in frontal view or in profile, all with the same posture: arms stretched up at the elbow and legs semi-squatting. With a strong sense of uniformity, the typical composition of the images is one of a large frontal view of a distinctly 'human' figure that dominates the centre, mostly with a 'sword' hanging at the waist or held in hand, a 'dog' under the feet, and a bronze drum-like object nearby, surrounded by lines of smaller profile 'human' figures without 'weapons'.

"Almost the totality of paintings in other parts of the world are found in desert regions or in caves, which made it possible to have them preserved through thousands of years," Li told Xinhua in an interview after the Guangxi Week opening ceremony. 

"It often heavily rains in that area and winds are strong. But the paintings preserved very well and did not lose their colors for as many as 1,800-2,000 years," she stressed. 

"We invited the world's experts to analyze the paintings, and all of them were highly impressed," Li went on to say. 

For this reason, she told Xinhua, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage decided to apply Huashan Rock Art Cultural Landscape as the sole item applied by China for the World Cultural Heritage List of 2016. 

Should the application be successful, she added, "not only the World Cultural Heritage List would be enriched with a site which has no equals in the world, but China would have its first cave paintings in the Heritage List, because China has 47 listed sites but no cave paintings have been included so far." 

The Huashan Rock Art is not only a crystallization of wisdom of the Chinese people, but also a precious treasure in the history of agricultural civilization development, one of the central issues of the Expo Milano 2015 dedicated to sustainable nutrition and healthy food for everybody. 

The paintings are also the only ones in the world that take the symbol of squatting figure as their basic matrix. These symbols all have two hands stretching on the two sides horizontally but bending at the elbows. They squat, kneeling down similar to frogs in shape, reflecting the culture cherished by ancient Luoyue people who worshipped the Frog God in the rice-farming culture. With recording sacrifice rites as the theme, the paintings depict the mental life and society of ancient Luoyue people, ancestors of today's Zhuang ethnic group. 

The vice governor led a delegation of over 100 representatives involving heads from various government agencies and institutions of agriculture, trade and investment, trade promotion and culture, as well as entrepreneurs and performers to the Milan Expo's Guangxi Week.

Read more about the rock art of Huashan in our China Rock Art Archive:

http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/china/huashan/index.php