秦始皇兵马俑静静地站在队伍中，保护秦始皇不被复仇的灵魂所伤害。这些栩栩如生的人物反映了对普通人的敏锐观察，而这种敏锐观察与他们的目的--为专制统治者提供来世的力量--又有违和感。

秦始皇兵马俑自1974年被发现以来一直独树一帜，但这并不是中国古代艺术的第一件或唯一的杰作。皇帝的工匠们能够汲取几千年来已经形成的技能和传统。

中国新石器时代--石器时代晚期--的艺术已经蕴含着巨大的审美力，而且常常看起来具有迷人的现代感：玉雕尤其如此，早在公元前四千年，玉雕就达到了微缩世界的极致。贯穿中国历史的玉石传统，从汉代的玉石葬衣到18世纪的玉雕《大禹治水图》等珍贵的微缩世界，从石器时代开始一直延续到后来的千年。

这是与西方熟悉的任何艺术及其历史不同的概念。中国的艺术始于高层次，并停留在那里：商朝和周朝的青铜铸造比其他地方的青铜时代作品的成就要高得多。中国古代庞大、有力、复杂的青铜器在后来的时代被刻意复兴和模仿，最早的青铜器和453年去世的刘宋文帝陵墓的石兽之间似乎又有惊人的连续性。

戴夫人华丽的棺材帷幔，说明绢上绘画也发展得很早，而秦始皇兵马俑的辉煌逼真，在后来的骑骆驼和马的陶俑中也有许多呼应。世人欣赏兵马俑是对的 — 但我们应该把眼光放得更远，中国的艺术史是一幅令人望而生畏的画卷，领先，极好，无可比拟。

参考资料：

【1】https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2008/oct/27/art-ancient-china

【2】https://baike.baidu.com/item/清大禹治水图玉山/1548501?fromtitle=大禹治水&fromid=18036395

1000 artworks to see before you die: Ancient China 

Jonathan Jones critique d'art britannique pour The Guardian 27 Oct 2008 

The terracotta army stand massed in their silent ranks, waiting to defend the First Emperor of Qin from avenging spirits. These lifesize figures reflect an acute observation of ordinary human beings, and one that is movingly at odds with their purpose - to provide forces in the next life for a despotic ruler. 

The First Emperor's terracotta army has been uniquely famous since its discovery in 1974 but it was not the first or only masterpiece of ancient Chinese art. The emperor's craftsmen were able to draw on skills and traditions already developed over millennia. 

Chinese neolithic - late stone age - art already contains tremendous aesthetic power and often looks disconcertingly modern: this is especially true of jade carving, which reached tremendous heights of subtle beauty as early as the fourth millennium BC. The jade tradition that flourished throughout Chinese history, through the jade burial suits of the Han dynasty to precious miniature worlds like an 18th century jade tableau of Yu the Great Taming the Waters, starts in the stone age and continues uninterrupted in later millennia. 

This is a different conception of art and its history from anything familiar in the west. Chinese art begins at a high level and stays there: bronze casting in the Shang and Chou dynasties was infinitely more accomplished than bronze age work anywhere else. The massive, potent, intricate bronze objects of ancient China were deliberately revived and imitated in later eras, and once again there seems startling continuity between the earliest bronzes and the stone beasts that guard the tomb of the Liu Song dynasty emperor Wendi, who died in 453. 

The gorgeous coffin drapery of Lady Dai shows that painting on silk also evolved early, and the brilliant realism of the First Emperor's terracotta army has many echoes in later ceramic figures of camels and horse riders. The world is right to admire the terracotta army - but we should look further. China's art history is a daunting scroll of firsts, bests and incomparables.