The Court and the Workshop

Your starting point

Explain change and continuity across Yuan and Ming China using political and artistic evidence.

The Yuan dynasty placed China within the Mongol imperial world. Kublai Khan proclaimed it in 1271, and the Southern Song fell in 1279. The Ming dynasty began in 1368 after the Yuan lost power. A change in ruling dynasty mattered, but it did not erase every institution, skill, belief, or artistic tradition used by the people living there.

Court records and art reveal different parts of that history. A government can promote a preferred cultural image while workshops, merchants, and scholars make their own choices within changing conditions. Yuan-era painting included forms of personal and scholarly expression; Ming production also drew on inherited practices and connections. One painting cannot represent every person’s experience.

In this fictional exhibition workshop, you receive labels that confuse political change with complete cultural replacement. Repair them by separating dates, evidence, and inference. The exercise does not treat China as one unchanging culture: the question is which particular features changed, which continued, and what evidence supports each conclusion.

Take your time. You can reopen these notes during any task. Work stays on this page; leaving or reloading clears it.