Around 4,000 years ago, the Chinese first started to cast bronze. The discovery and use of this new material had a strong spiritual connection for the Chinese people as they cast it into exquisite vessels that were used to make offerings of food and wine to ancestral spirits. These bronze vessels are decorated with stunning abstract and animal imagery. Examining them tells us a great deal about these early people and how their experiences relate to our own. The objects featured in this program are from the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and are considered to be one of the top three collections of Bronze Age art in the West.

Much of what we think of as "Chinese art objects" are items that were buried in tombs with the dead. The ancient Chinese believed that after they died, they would need the same types of objects they used while alive. The Chinese buried an enormous quantity and variety of goods made from materials such as ceramic, gold, and jade. These goods could be as mundane as a bowl for storing food, or as grand as an entire army to protect the deceased in the next world. A significant portion of the collection at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts Chinese art collection is, in fact, ancient burial objects. By exploring these exquisite relics, we can understand a great deal about the ancient Chinese and how their beliefs compare with contemporary belief systems, both here and in China.

Walk into any department store, and you see countless items made in China. Many people think this is a recent trend. In fact, the Chinese have been leaders in international trade for most of recorded history. Early Chinese merchants sent silk to Rome on caravans of camels more than two thousand years ago. Blue and white porcelain, another Chinese invention, caught the attention of cultures throughout the world, and China dominated the ocean shipping routes after trade along the Silk Road tapered off. The appearance of items in department stores is a resurgence of something that has been happening for centuries and the story of China’s history at the height of its trading days tells us just how advanced this culture was.

Chinese painting is the world's longest pictorial tradition; the Middle Kingdom's highest form of artistic expression. This program tracks the evolution of Chinese landscape painting and features visits to ink stick and ink stone factories and the studios of contemporary Chinese painters to examine the influence of Chinese as well as Western traditions.

Although it is disappearing from a fast-modernizing China, the courtyard house has been a hallmark of Chinese architecture for 2000 years. This program explores the uses, aesthetics and building techniques associated with this innovative and influential architectural tradition, which was inspired by both the practical and spiritual attributes of a Confucian society.

During China’s Ming and Qing dynasties, a group of scholar-artists who were immersed in nature and creative stimuli produced some of the most important works in all of Chinese art. These Literati played music, collected birds and crickets, and collected beautiful works of art, especially great hardwood furniture. They saw themselves as representing the continuity of Chinese culture and their independent spirit was expressed in the stunning works they produced.