Search Results: Chinese torture

An 1892 painting, The Torture of Cuauhtémoc, by Leandro Izaguirre. Cuauhtémoc was the last Aztec ruler and he was tortured by the conquistadors to find out the last deposits of gold in the city of Tenochtitlan. (National Museum of Art, Mexico...

A model of a torture rack in the Tower of London. The rack was used to extract confessions and information by stretching the limbs and eventually ripping the tendons and sinews of the person tied to it. A famous example of its use was on...

An illustration showing the torture of indigenous American peoples by Spanish conquistadors. From the 1552 edition of A Very Brief Recital of the Destruction of the Indies by Bartolomé de las Casas which was a graphic indictment of the exploitation...

Self-torture in a Sioux Religious Ceremony, oil on canvas by George Catlin, 1835-1837. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C.

Ancient China covered a vast and ever-changing geopolitical landscape, and the art it produced over three millennia is, unsurprisingly, just as varied. Still, despite continuous indigenous technical developments, changes in materials and...

Ancient China had seen little Western contact before the 16th century CE, the language, culture and science all being allowed to develop independently of foreign influence. By the time European Jesuit missionaries arrived in the 16th century...

Contact between Korea and China goes back to mythology and prehistory. Trade developed from the Bronze and Iron Ages with raw materials and manufactured goods going in both directions for centuries thereafter. In addition to traders, migrants...

Ancient Chinese writing evolved from the practice of divination during the Shang Dynasty (1600-1046 BCE). Some theories suggest that images and markings on pottery shards found at Ban Po Village are evidence of an early writing system but...

Walled compounds, raised pavilions, wooden columns and panelling, yellow glazed roof tiles, landscaped gardens, and a careful application of town planning and use of space are all notable features of the architecture of ancient China, with...

Chinese literature is among the most imaginative and interesting in the world. The precision of the language results in perfectly realized images whether in poetry or prose and, as with all great literature, the themes are timeless. The Chinese...