Page 86 - China, 5000 years : innovation and transformation in the arts

he grips two more in his hands (cat. 52), is one of
Fig. g. Flask. 6th century BCE. Lijiazhuang, Xingtang
county, Hebei Province.
canopied carriages of Western Han princes reveal
the continuing Chinese fascination with these
border tribes: a mounted hunter executing a
Parthian shot at a leaping tiger behind him, and
topknotted foreigners riding elephants and camels
(cat. 49; see also cat. 42 This exotic iconography Chu bronzes (like the horns on cats. 45 and 46); it
51).
is further enhanced by lavish inlays of gold, silver,
and turquoise, colors that might have approximated
the brightly appliqued felts and other fabrics worn
by the northern peoples. 43
The bronze casters of south China, whose
repertoire of masks, drums, and bells, and
preference for sculptural ornament on vessels,
contrast so strikingly with the bronze conventions
of the heartland, attained new heights during the
late first millennium bce. Three exceptional bronzes
(cats. 45, 46, 52) can be associated with the state of
Chu, the most powerful ruling house to emerge
south of theYangzi River in the second half of the
millennium. Chu s exoticism differs from that of
the north, featuring intricate baroque forms and
fantastic, serpentine imagery. 4"1 The sinuous
creatures with elaborate horns that support the
large, early sixth-century bce vessel (cat. 45) are
close relatives of the pair of slightly later, malachite-
encrusted beasts, one of which is represented here
(cat. 46) . 4S The rhythms generated by the sinuous
body, animated pose, lolling tongue, and spiraling
horns of the fabulous animal amplify the more
subtle rhythms produced by the interlaced pattern
and sculptural appendages on the earlier vessel
A(cat. 45). kneeling humanoid, biting one snake as
INNOVATION IN ANCIENT CHINESE METALWORK
two such corner fittings that supported a lacquer
screen found in a tomb at Guangzhou, Guangdong
Province, just north of Hong Kong. This fabulous
creature demonstrates Chu's far-reaching
geographical and temporal influence on the bronze
maker's art.
Successful production of these intertwining and
curvilinear forms posed a new challenge to bronze
casters trained in section-mold casting techniques.
Although the main body of the hu vessel and of the
fabulous inlaid beast were still cast using mold
sections, like nryriad bronzes before them, the
gyrating, spiraling horns of the appended creatures
on the hu were made with a little-used technique:
lost-wax casting. Compared with the millennium-
old section-mold casting technique, lost-wax
casting is an easier way to cast complex three-
dimensional shapes and decorations. The technique
starts with a wax model of the shape to be made;
because wax is soft and pliable, this shape can be as
intricate as desired (fig. 10). After the model is
encased in clay, the whole assembly is heated so
that the wax melts away through vents left for this
purpose, leaving a cavity inside that exactly
duplicates the model. Molten bronze is then poured
Wheninto this cavity. the bronze has cooled, the
clay mold is broken open to reveal the final product
in cast bronze. This technique appeared in China
sometime during the sixth century bce, used
primarily to cast complex decorative appendages on
may have been prompted by the special demands of
Chu aesthetics. 46
WESTERN HAN PERIOD
By the late second century bce, when the screen
support (cat. 52) was made, lost-wax casting was
widely used in both metropolitan and regional
workshops to produce large, intricately shaped or
sculptural bronzes (cats. 50, 53, 55— 58). The
exquisite gold-inlaid incense burner (cat. 50)
belonging to the Western Han prince Liu Sheng is
a handsome product of metropolitan workshops. 47
The frank realism and exotic imagery of the
bronzes from the Dian kingdom in Yunnan
Province, in southwestern China, illustrate the
foreign heritage of its people and the huge
distances that separated them, culturally and
artistically as well as geographically, from the Han
court (cats. 55—58). 48 The Dian peoples wore fitted
trousers and short tunics typical of horse-riding
tribes of Central Asia and seemed to delight in
animated (perhaps even rowdy) dancing (cat. 56). 49
Bulls appear to have held a significant place in Dian
ritual and sacrifice (cat. 57); and the brutality of war
was apparently acknowledged, perhaps even gloried
in (cat. 55). These Dian bronzes were all made with
the lost-wax casting technique. In subsequent