Page 156 - The Arts of China, By Michael Sullivan Good Book

16? "Lion-and-grapc" mirror. Bronze.
T'ang Dynatty.

and figures, hunting scenes, flowers, birds, and floral scrolls, gen-
erally chased or engraved, and set off" against a background of
rows of tiny punched circles, a technique borrowed from Sasanian
mctalwork.
The extravagant taste of the T'ang Dynasty also demanded that
mirror backs be gilded or silvered. The old abstract and magical
designs have now been replaced by a profusion of ornament
whose significance is auspicious in a more general way. Symbols
of conjugal felicity, entwined dragons, phoenixes, birds, and
flowers in relief or inlaid in silver or mother-of-pearl account for
most of the designs. Two beautiful mirrors in the Shosoin retain
something of the ancient symbolism of the TLV design by bear-
ing landscapes of foam-washed peaks ringed with clouds and set
about with fairies, immortals, and other fabulous creatures; while
the influence of Manichaean symbolism may be seen, as Cam-
mann has suggested, in the "lion-and-grape" design which was
extremely popular for a short time; its sudden disappearance may
have coincided with the suppression of foreign religions in
843/45.
CERAMICS T'ang ceramics, too, made much use of foreign shapes and motifs.
The metal ewer was copied in stoneware, often with applique de-
signs in relief under a mottled green and brown glaze; the rhyton
was reproduced from an old Persian shape; the circular pilgrim
bottle, which appears in the blue-glazed pottery of Parthian Persia
and Syria, reappears in China, decorated rather roughly in relief
with vintaging boys, dancers, musicians, and hunting scenes. The
Hellenistic amphora in Chinese stoneware loses its static symme-
try; the playful dragon handles, the lift and buoyancy of its silhou-
ette, the almost casual way in which the glaze is splashed on, all
bespeak the touch of the Chinese craftsman, who brings the clay
to life under his hands.
The T'ang Dynasty is notable in the history of Chinese ce-
ramics for the dynamic beauty of its shapes, for the development
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