the most
distinctive variations are due to religious influences, to Buddhism and
Confucianism. No doubt, as always, these religions gave a tremendous
impetus to artistic activities of all kinds. But they also did a lot of
harm – Buddhism by its insistence on a dogmatic symbolism, always a
bad element in art; and Confucianism by its doctrine of ancestor
worship, which was interpreted in art as crude traditionalism, requiring
the strict imitation of ancestral art. But in spite of these
limitations, perhaps in some sense because of them, Chinese art
maintains its vitality, reaching its highest development in the Song
period, a period which corresponds roughly in time, and even more
strikingly in mannerism, with the early Gothic period in Europe.