Page 24 - China's Renaissance in Bronze, The Robert H.CIague Collection of Later Chinese Bronzes 1100-1900

occasionally display stylized birds but more typically feature relatively
large-scale dissolved-dragon forms in rounded relief, the dragons set
against a plain ground. The taotie mask - the most frequently encoun-
tered of all motifs on bronzes of the Shang dynasty - began to wane in
popularity early in the Western Zhou period, and must be considered an
anachronistic element on a vessel imitating a late Western Zhou style.
Also anachronistic is the motif of tiny interlaced stylized dragons, which
did not appear with frequency until a century or two later than the strap-
work-decorated Western Zhou vessels that served as the primary model
for the Clague hu's surface decoration. During the Eastern Zhou period, the
dragon interlace regularly occurred on both bronzes and jades, 3 especially
those of the seventh through the third century BC. Interlaced dragon
designs on bronzes cast earlier in that five-hundred-year period tend to
exhibit a uniform height of relief, 4 but ones on vessels cast later in the
period reveal considerable modulation in height of relief, the dragons'
'heads' and 'tails' often rising significantly above their bodies, clearly distin-
5
guishing one dragon - or 'plastic curl/ as Max Loehr termed them - from the
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next. The relatively even height of relief, the 'outlined' character of the
individual dragons, and the arrangement of the dragons into horizontal
rows suggest that vessels from the seventh to fifth century BC likely inspired
the decoration of the Clague hu. In fact, the character and texture of the
dragon interlace on the Clague hu relate closely to those on a hu vessel,
probably of seventh-century BC date, in the Nezu Museum, Tokyo. 7
Bronzes from the Song dynasty remain in sufficient numbers to
illustrate that, when they wished, foundrymen were able to create decep-
8
tively faithful copies of Shang and Zhou vessels. The simplified strapwork
moldings, the new interpretation of the hu shape with a flat shoulder, and
the combination of decorative elements in a fashion that would not have
occurred in antiquity indicate that the Clague hu is not a direct copy of an
early hu; rather, it is an archaistic vessel inspired by a variety of ancient
bronzes, modified to create a new one. With its juxtaposition of utterly
plain and highly textured surfaces, of rounded forms and angled corners,
this vessel establishes a new set of happily resolved tensions, resulting in
a stable, balanced, and very pleasing aesthetic.
Cast integrally with the vessel itself, an intaglio inscription in bronze-
script (jinwen) characters appears inside the neck in four columns that
read top to bottom, right to left. Although the inscription is legible only in
part, due to its somewhat concealed placement, its unassertive casting,
and its light patina, enough can be deciphered to ascertain that it reveals

2 0 C H I N A ' S R E N A I S S A N C E IN B R O N Z E