Page 49 - The Arts of China, By Michael Sullivan Good Book

belong to the whole repertoire — part decorative, part symbolic,
part magical—of Shang art.
Already in certain Neolithic sites we have encountered jade, se- JADE
lected, it appears, for objects of more than purely utilitarian pur-
pose by virtue of its hardness, strength, and purity. In the Shang
Dynasty, the craft ofjadc-carving progresses a step further, and
we must briefly consider the sources of this stone, the technique of
carving it, and the unique place it occupies in early Chinese cul-
ture. Although early Chinese texts speak of jade from several
places in China, for many centuries the chief source has been the
riverbeds of the Khotan region in central Asia, and Western schol-
ars came to the conclusion that jade did not exist in its true state in
China proper. Recent discoveries, however, seem to lend some
support to the ancient texts, for a jadeitic stone used today by Pe-
king jadesmiths has been traced to Nanyang in Honan and Lan-
t'ien in Shensi. However, the truejade {(hen yii) prized throughout
history by the Chinese is nephrite, a crystalline stone as hard as
steer and of peculiar toughness. In theory it is pure white, but even
small amounts of impurities will produce a wide range of colours
from green and blue to brown, red, grey, yellow, and even black.
In the eighteenth century, Chinese jade carvers discovered in
Burma a source of another mineral, jadeite. whose brilliant apple
and emerald greens have made it deservedly popular forjewellery
both in China and abroad. Because of its unique qualities, jade has
since ancient times been regarded by the Chinese with special rev-
erence. In his great dictionary the Shuo-wen Chieh-tzu, the Han
scholar Hsu Shcn described it in words now well known to every
student of Chinese art: "Jade is the fairest of stones. It is endowed
with five virtues. Charity is typified by its lustre, bright yet warm;
rectitude by its translucency, revealing the colour and markings
within; wisdom by the purity and penetrating quality of its note
when the stone is struck; courage, in that it may be broken, but
cannot be bent; equity, in that it has sharp angles, which yet injure
none." 3 While this definition applies essentially to true jade, the J6 Stone andjade figurines. From die
tomb of Fu Hao, Anyang. Slung
word yii may include not only nephrite and jadeite but other fine Dynasty.
stones such as serpentine, tremolite, hornblende, and even
marble.
The hardness and toughness of jade make it very difficult to
carve. To work it one must use an abrasive. Hansford has demon-
strated that it is possible, given time, to drill a hole in a slab ofjade
using only a bamboo bow drill and builder s sand. It has recently
been suggested that metal tools were already employed at An-
yang, and there is evidence that the Shang lapidary may also have
used a drill-point harder than modern carborundum. Some small
pieces carved in the round have been found in Shang sites, but the
vast majority consist of weapons, ritual and decorative objects
carved from thin slabs seldom more than half an inch thick. The
jades from Chcngchow include long, beautifully shaped knives
and axe blades (ko), circles, sections of discs, a figure of a tortoise,
Cc