Underground Blossom: Peony, Spatiality, and Entanglement in Tombs of the Liao Dynasty(916-1125 CE)

When the flower-and-bird painting developed into an independent genre of Chinese painting during the medieval period, the floral and foliate forms, especially the representation of peony flowers, also became prominent in the funerary architecture. This paper focuses on peony flowers depicted in tombs of the Liao Dynasty, a regime established by the nomadic Khitan people and controlling northern China during from the 10th to the 12th century. By tracing changes of peony flowers’ position in the burial space, ranging from funerary beds, sarcophagi, to walls of tomb chambers, this paper articulates different layers of spatiality associated with the presence of peony in mortuary architecture, which relates to various forms of entanglements between human and nature and among people. I argue that peony flowers depicted on funerary beds and sarcophagi mirror flower paintings on screens that create an intimate space around the deceased. The flower and the deceased body are entangled, as the screen depicted with flower together with its enclosed space became the extension of the deceased’s body. Tomb murals featuring peony flowers together with rocks and insects transform the burial space into a garden, bridging human’s living quarter and the natural landscape. Lastly, this paper explores peony’s symbolic meaning as part of the royal regalia by examining contemporaneous textual sources. Comparing peony flowers painted during the Liao Dynasty and under regimes established by Han Chinese, I explain how the Kitan elites appropriated the peony flower to assert its legitimate rule over the Chinese land.