Page 47 - The Arts of China, By Michael Sullivan Good Book

sweeping decoration of the Yang-shao painted pottery we saw a
hint of that uniquely Chinese faculty of conveying formal energy
through the medium of dynamic linear rhythms; here in the
bronzes that faculty is even more powerfully evident, while many
centuries later it will find its supreme expression in the language of
the brush.
The bronze weapons used by the Shang people show several as-
pects of this many-faceted culture. Most purely Chinese was a
form of dagger-axe known as the ko, with pointed blade and a
tang which was passed through a hole in the shaft and lashed to it,
or, more rarely, shaped like a collar to fit around the shaft. The ko
probably originates in a Neolithic weapon and seems to have had
a ritual significance, for some of the most beautiful Shang speci-
mens have blades of jade, while the handle is often inlaid with a
32 Ritual vessel, nun. Bronze.
mosaic of turquoise. The ch *i axe, which also originated in a stone
Excavated at Funan. Anhui. Late Shang
tool, has a broad, curving blade like that of a mediaeval execution- period.
er's axe, while its flanged tang is generally decorated with t'ao-t'ieh
and other motifs. A fine example of a ch H axe, excavated in 1976 at
Yi-tu in Shantung, is illustrated here. On either side of the terri-
fying mask is a cartouche of ya-hsing shape, containing the figure
of a man offering wine on an altar from a vessel with a ladle. Less
1

}J Dagger-axe. ko. Bronze withjade
blade. From Anyang. Late Shang
period.

U Axe, th'i Bronze From Yi-tu.
Shantung.