Inventing Wilderness

Newly available archaeological evidence has once again redefined the “origin” of landscape representations in China, while also providing much richer information about their material media and pictorial context. This chapter focuses on a group of images on bronze artifacts from the fifth to fourth century BCE, which juxtapose scenes of wilderness with scenes of human civilization typified by ritual performances. These pictorial compositions evince many parallels with the Gateways through Mountains and Seas, a mythical/geographical text transmitted from ancient times. Together they propel us to contemplate why the ancient Chinese turned their mind and eye to uninhabited nature and depicted it at this particular moment. Significantly, this was also the time in Chinese history when geographical exploration was actively taking place and had become a central topic in the poetic and religious imagination.