Memory Making: The First Emperor's Legacy at the Asian Art Museum
by Gregg Chadwick China's Terracotta Warriors: The First Emperor's Legacy at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco photo by Gregg Chadwick "I, Sovereign, am the First Emperor; my descendants will call themselves the Second Generation, the Third Generation, and will go on forever after." - The First Emperor, Qin Shihuang (259-210 BCE) quoted by the historian Sima Qian (145-90 BCE) China's Terracotta Warriors: The First Emperor's Legacy currently on view at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco until May 27, 2013 provides tantalizing glimpses of an ancient culture and its rulers' attempts to influence cultural and political memory. Over two thousand years ago, Qin Shihuang - the first emperor of China, began constructing a massive mausoleum to ensure, what Li He, the Asian Museum's associate curator of Chinese art, describes as the personal and political "continuation of the fami...