Page 104 - China's Renaissance in Bronze, The Robert H.CIague Collection of Later Chinese Bronzes 1100-1900

table' that soared to popularity late in the Kangxi period. (Crafted in porce-
3
lain, the 'eight objects' include a seal-paste container, a brush washer, water
coupes of two varieties, and small vases of four different shapes; connois-
seurs have traditionally favored those with peachbloom glaze.) Of the four
vase types standard among the 'eight objects,' two have elongated necks
and one has relief ribs at the base of the neck; 4 one of the long-necked
vases also has an inclined shoulder. The shape thus argues for a date no
earlier than the eighteenth century for this small vase.
Thanks to praise showered upon it by Confucius, bamboo came to be
admired for its resilience, standing as a symbol of uprightness and strength-
in-weakness. 5 Because it retains its leaves the year round, even during the
cold winter months, bamboo was also regarded as an emblem of strength
in the face of adversity. In addition, bamboo was thought to mirror the
virtues of the junzi, or Confucian gentleman, so it was the perfect symbol
for the literati, 6 and thus an appropriate motif for items destined for the
scholar's desk, such as this small water container.
The association of ink bamboo painting with the literati began in
the Northern Song with such masters as Su Shi (1037-1101) and his distant
cousin, Wen Tong (1018/19-1079). In bamboo these artists found an ideal
vehicle for the expression of feelings through descriptive but highly calli-
graphic brushwork. Ink bamboo rose to prominence during the early
Yuan in the works of such painters as Zhao Mengfu (1254-1322) and Li Kan
(1245-1320), and had become a fully established idiom by the closing years
of the dynasty; such paintings typically represent a clump of bamboo grow-
ing beside a rock, the clear ancestor of the scene depicted on this vase. In
the Ming and Qing periods this interest in bamboo not only led a number
of artists to specialize in bamboo painting but also sparked the desire for
scholars' accoutrements crafted in bamboo 7 [compare 31].
Popular as the subject of painting on paper and silk since Song times,
bamboo did not find a role as a principal motif in the decorative arts until
the Qing dynasty, 8 though it had occasionally appeared alongside other
plants, especially as one of the 'Three Friends of Winter,' since the Yuan and
9
early Ming [see 14]. With clusters of three leaves branching from a stalk com-
posed of a single line, the bamboo has been depicted in a very direct fashion
on this vase; its unostentatious presentation contrasts with the more com-
plex treatment of the bamboo on a Shisou-marked ink stick stand in the
Victoria and Albert Museum, London, in which leaves overlap and in which
the sections of the bamboo stalk are individually outlined. 10

1 10 C H I N A ' S R E N A I S S A N C E I N B R O N Z E