Page 28 - China's Renaissance in Bronze, The Robert H.CIague Collection of Later Chinese Bronzes 1100-1900

HIS HANDSOME FLAT-BOTTOMED CYLINDRICAL CENSER rests on
three evenly spaced legs in the form of kneeling male figures who
T bear the weight of the vessel on their shoulders. Their arms akimbo,
the figures wear loose trousers secured at the waist and scarf-like upper
garments that fall downward from the shoulders revealing their rather
substantial bellies. Small tufts of hair crown their otherwise bald heads. A
complex pattern of low-relief floral arabesques embellishes the exterior
walls of the vessel (which taper ever so slightly near the top). Each of the
three principal arabesques occupies a diamond-shaped panel framed by
a double band of leiwen bounded by a relief bowstring line, the panels
centered each above one of the anthropomorphic legs. Two half-panels
of identical type fill the interstices, their corners touching at a point mid-
way between adjacent legs. Two opposed pushou-mask escutcheons, each
with a pendant fluted ring that originally had a free-turning bronze ring
(now lost), appear one-third of the way down from the mouth. Narrow,
undecorated bands encircle the vessel top and bottom, clearly demar-
cating the vessel's boundaries and bordering its decoration. The interior
and base are plain.
The Chinese had burned incense at least as early as the Shang
dynasty, and by Warring States and Han times had created specialized
incense burners. Known as boshanlu, such censers usually had a cup-like
container set atop a slender tubular stalk anchored in a small saucer-like
basin that often had a coiled dragon on its floor; a perforated, conical cover
in the form of a soaring mountain peak completed the composition. 1 As
incense burned in the container, smoke emerged through the perforations
in the cover, hovering like an enveloping mist about a mountain peak.
Water in the basin not only afforded a measure of protection against fire,
but completed the mountain-water symbolism that is emblematic of all
nature, of y/n and yang, of female and male [see 48].
The popularity of the boshanlu censer declined with the collapse of
the Han. With the rise of Buddhism during the centuries following, two
new types of censers appeared for use in Buddhist ceremonies: one type,
which had a circular, bowl-shaped container and a long straight handle,
was carried in processions, as indicated by wall paintings at Dunhuang
and by illustrations in woodblock-printed books; the other type, which
was for use on altars, as depicted in similar books and wall paintings, had
an ornamented, circular, basin-like container that was surmounted by a tall,
2
pierced, domed cover which sat atop a ring of tall legs - usually five legs
in the form of lion's claws. The late Tang and early Song periods witnessed

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