Page 153 - Deydier UNDERSTANDING CHINESE ARCHAIC BRONZES

our modern age, the phrase San Yang Kai Tai 三羊開泰 (Three Sheep/ During the Shang 商 dynasty, the tiger motif sometimes appeared on
Rams/Goats Usher in Prosperity and Renewal) frequently appears in bronze ritual vessels and especially as part of the design on gong 觥 or
calligraphic scrolls placed over doorways and on the walls of offices on the handles of ding 鼎, such as those excavated at Qingjiang 清江 in
and the parlours of family homes, especially during the Chinese Year Jiangxi 江西 province between 1973 and 1975 and the famous “Si Mu
of the Sheep, Ram or Goat. Wu fang ding” 司母戊方鼎, where the animal appears on the handles
cast in the round.
During the Shang 商 and early Western Zhou 西周早期 dynasties,
the ram motif usually appeared on bronze vessels as secondary
ornamentation. In rarer instances, the ram was also cast in the round
with protruding horns as the central motif of a vessel. But perhaps the
most spectacular use of the ram motif can be seen on vessels on which
the animal, or its front and top part, is cast in the round as part of
a vessel, such as is the case with a big square zun 尊, 58.5 cm high,
excavated in 1938 at Huangcai 黃材, Ningxian county 寧鄉縣, Hunan
湖南 province, which is cast with four rams back-to-back with their
protruding heads in the round surmounted with elegant coiled horns
and their powerful chests and front legs cast in high relief below.

A large bronze vessel now in the British Museum, is cast in the shape
of the front halves of a pair of two outwardly facing rams with powerful
coiled horned heads and extended chests standing on their two front
legs supporting a high vessel between them.

The Tiger Motif 虎紋
Inordinately strong and intelligent, fast-moving, courageous, fearless
and majestic in appearance, the tiger has always been for the Chinese
a symbol of both physical and metaphysical power, a creature that,
it was believed, could communicate directly with heaven and the
denizens of the netherworld and serve as an intermediary between
them and mankind, as well as a creature that could dispel evil forces
and protect human beings. Making use of various tiger motifs, China’s During the Shang 商, a very few ritual vases were cast in the form of
rulers and warriors attempted to adopt as their own the tiger’s fear- a complete tiger. The most amazing and famous of these are two you
inspiring grandeur and prestige, while the common people employed 卣, each cast in the form of a large tiger seated on its hind legs with a
tiger motifs as powerful talismans to ward off inauspiciousness from human figure emerging from its widely opened mouth. One of these
their homes and invoke divine protection for the bodies of themselves magnificent vessels is now in the Cernuschi Museum in Paris and the
and their young offspring. other is in the Sumitomo Collection in Japan. In 1989, an amazingly
lively, full-bodied, running tiger was excavated from a Shang tomb at
Xingang 新干 Dayangzhou 大洋洲 in Jiangxi 江西 province.

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