Page 46 - China's Renaissance in Bronze, The Robert H.CIague Collection of Later Chinese Bronzes 1100-1900

The decoration on this hu takes its cue from antiquity, but combines
elements old and new in a novel way. The birds - often called dragons but
identified as birds by pointed beaks and curling crests atop their heads -
in the main register derive from related creatures that often appear in a
subsidiary band immediately above the principal band of decoration in
2
bronzes of the early Western Zhou period. The feline masks that separate
the birds on the Clague vessel represent a reduction of the relief heads
that typically separate birds, and sometimes dragons, in those same sub-
sidiary bands on early Western Zhou vessels. 3 A typical feature of tall,
slender vessels during the Shang dynasty, rising blades frequently appeared
about the necks of ancient gu and zun; 4 despite the disappearance of the
gu and the transformation of the zun into a sleekly styled urn with S-curved
profile in early Western Zhou, the rising blade motif persisted, albeit in
broader, squatter form with more emphatic decoration. 5 If the confronting
birds on the Clague vase derive from those on early Western Zhou vessels,
the elongated form and unassertive ornament suggest that its rising blades
descend from ones on Shang bronzes; 6 even the pleasing alternation of
plain and decorated areas on the neck and shoulder of this vase doubtless
refers to the alternation of rising blades and unornamented areas on the
flaring necks of Shang gu and zun vessels. Such rising blades (set against
plain grounds) also appear on Song and Yuan ceramics, as seen in a thir-
teenth -century, trumpet-mouthed, zun-shaped vase from the Longquan
kilns, 7 now in the Percival David Foundation, London. As documented both
by this bronze vase and the large Song-dynasty hu in the Clague Collection
[1], archaistic vessels of the Song and Yuan freely mix elements from dif-
ferent periods of antiquity in their decorative schemes.
They also add new elements, such as the ring handles and the wave
pattern about the neck of this vase. More so than that on the miniature hu
[3], the water pattern on this vase is virtually identical to that on thirteenth-
and fourteenth-century slip-painted Jizhou ceramic vessels, 8 indicating a
close link with Southern Song and Yuan ceramics. As Rose Kerr has pointed
out, wave patterns on both Song-Yuan bronzes and painted Jizhou wares
also find parallels in Song architectural decoration, as evinced by the stone
reliefs depicting Buddhist figures against a ground of rolling waves carved
on the walls of Chuzu-an hall at Shaolin-si (Shaolin Temple) 9 in Henan
province, which was built in 1125. Cast separately and attached, the dragon
heads from whose mouths the ring handles issue represent an early type,

4 2 C H I N A ' S R E N A I S S A N C E IN B R O N Z E