Page 80 - China, 5000 years : innovation and transformation in the arts

Differences in alloy composition and mold assembly

among these fang ding suggest that the bronze

casters were still learning and experimenting,

especially with large castings. Scientific analyses of

two of the Zhengzhou vessels show a fairly

consistent range in the percentage of copper in the

alloy, but wide fluctuations in the percentage of

—lead, which contributes to the viscosity hence,

—ease in pouring of the 8 Casting seams left

alloy.

on the vessels also suggest that different mold

assemblies and casting procedures were used to

make vessels of the same shape and decoration. On

one Zhengzhou vessel, as in the Pinglu example

(cat. 22), the four central sections of each side, the
legs, and the flat bottom appear to have been

precast. These were inserted into the molds for the

four corner sections, and then the rest of the vessel

was poured around the precast parts. Large areas of

metal overflow on the four faces of the Pinglu

vessel where these joints occur testify to problems

Onin the casting. several of the Zhengzhou vessels,

one single mold section was used for each of the

four sides, producing a more polished casting less

marked by casting seams (compare the

reconstruction in fig. 2).

ANYANG PERIOD Fig. 2. Reconstruction of section-mold assembly for casting.

Sometime around 1300 bce the Shang kings fringes of the Shang domain, along the Yangzi
relocated their capital to the vicinity of present-day River basin. 9
Anyang in northern Henan Province. The two
centuries or so between the manufacture of the fang Conceptually different from vessels incorporating
ding (cat. 22) and the bronzes associated with the animal forms are two creations (cats. 27, 25) that are
court at Anyang (cats. 23—26), saw huge strides in
the bronze caster's craft. By about 1200 bce not wholly sculptural. An accidental find in Hunan
only were China's bronze casters able to create
dense, multilayered decoration on a vessel's surface, Province, south of the Yangzi River, the boar (cat.
they were also able to produce vessels with 27) is exceptional not just for its size but for its
complex shapes that must have challenged the realism; its cloven hoofs, boarish snout, and tusks
ingenuity of the section-mold makers of the time. are all carefully observed and convincingly
Whereas decorating the bronze surface allowed depicted. Even the fine scale-pattern and the large
bronze casters to develop two-dimensional designs, spiraling motifs on its haunches evoke the animal's
the inherent three-dimensional form of the vessels hide and musculature. Unlike most bronzes of the
presented opportunities to create sculpturally. For
time, the boar is not a container, and we can only
—example, a fairly ordinary abstract shape a four-
—sided vessel (cat. 23) became, with the addition of surmise its function. Cylindrical channels running
crosswise through the boar's front and back
a ram at each of the vessel's four corners, an haunches suggest that it might have been carried,
inspired organic form that still fulfilled its function by means of poles inserted through the channels,
as a container. The rams' heads emerge as fully perhaps at ceremonial processions. 10 If so, the
three-dimensional sculptures, while their chests and choice of animal would have been related to the
front legs appear 111 relief, rendered with astonishing religious or ritual requirements of the local
realism amid a dense sea of spiral and scroll
patterns. The shallow well of the large basin (cat. (southern) patrons for whom it was made. The
29) becomes a viable pool for the coiled dragon
whose three-dimensional head rises most elephant (cat. 25), one of only two known (the
convincingly from its two-dimensional snakelike
body. These vessels are made more remarkable by other is in the Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian
Institution), served a better-attested function as a
—their unusual size the basin is the largest example
wine or water container." Though a vessel, it too is
—of its kind and by the likelihood that they were
animal-shaped; its elaborate surface motifs, however,
made not in the capital region of Anyang but in
workshops in the remote southern and southeastern are utterly nondescriptive of elephants. The small
hare-like creature perched on top of the elephant's
trunk serves no function but presents an

— —incongruous therefore witty juxtaposition.

INNOVATION IN ANCIENT CHINESE METALWORK 78