Warrior Emperor exhibit at the ROM

Visiting the Warrior Emperor and the Terracotta warriors exhibit this week at the ROM was a great view to an amazing individual.

Qin Shi Huang was the emperor in question, and although he appeared to be autocratic and cruel, unified China geographically (and repressed cultural differences in the process), and standardized script and many forms of measurement.

The tomb figures and items in the exhibit are from the famous 'mausoleum' grave of the emperor. Thousands of figures, horses, dogs, cooking and cultural objects were fashioned from clay, or kept in the original bronze in a gigantic grave that looked from photos like it was as least as big as a couple of football fields.

I wish that someone would photoshop the photo of the archeological find - the Chinese have housed it a domed building and it seems like all these warrior guys are standing around in a warehouse waiting to go somewhere. The impressiveness of the array of the warriors gets diminished by the skylights and metal joists etc in the building's photos.

The exhibit itself, although crowded (maybe I shouldn't have gone in the early afternoon) was well laid out. The environmental feel, which was affected by the colour and lighting in particular, kept a reverence and dynamism coincidentally. Because the ROM's exhibition hall has diagonally placed columns, the dynamic in graphic panels and banners that were made for this exhibit was well sync'd with the architectural dominance of these. The entry graphics with the many faces of the warriors gave a sense of the overwhelming nature of the diversity of people that the emperor ruled. As warriors they would have had the military allegiance - re-enactment footage bore this out- but one can always see the person who is unique, in the faces.

The section graphics were powerful and contemporary, giving a lovely foil to the textural simplicity of the terracotta objects.

One very poignant object that struck me was a door frame carved with beautiful decorative elements. It made me somewhat wistful, wondering what out society would be like if we actually treasured the capacity of our artists to affect our environment- if someone took the time to carve a contemporary door- not some Indonesian knock off- and spend the time to appreciate what they were doing so that others could do the same for decades afterwards. We don't spend the time, people shop at the Brick and IKEA and consume their physical environment like an expendable commodity. Maybe what it means is that the well crafted items will be the only thing that survives- skewing the interpretation of who we are to misinterpret us as aesthetically caring! Has this happened in our view of cultures past?