Field day: The Kindness of Tang women

More things found at the Field Museum last week -- terra cotta figures from the Tang Dynasty -- dug up in Shensi Province by the Marshall Field expedition of 1921.




Why is it that whenever a shovel digs into this period of Chinese history, out comes another sweet, plump Chinese female figure -- that feels so gentle, so individual, with a human (rather than divine) loving kindness that I can't remember from the figures of any other culture or period ?




And it's the same story every year I visit the Chicago Antiques Show: there's always another plump, sweet, loving clay woman -- about 1200 years old (and given their museum quality, they're not really that expensive)