Page 483 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

the
which originated in
339 peaches of immortality, Mother of the West, are
gardens of the
Queen
ZHI Hu WINE EWER among the god's standard attributes. In like fash-
ion the eight figures within the two medallions
i6th century are the special group of Daoist saints known as
Chinese
green jade with brown and black markings the Eight Immortals. Individually identifiable
7
height 25.1 (9 /s) by characteristic attributes, these transcendants
reference: Weng and Yang 1982, 262 are gathered here in joint celebration with the
god above.
Palace Museum, Beijing This iconography was held particularly appro-
priate for men's birthdays—women celebrated
From the narrow sides of the flattened, gourd- with the all-powerful Queen Mother at their
shaped body extend the handle and spout, whose head — and more specific anniversary wishes are
lines suggest a rectilinear frame for the body even indicated by the characters jiu ru appearing on the
while their curving contours provide contrapuntal scroll held by the Immortal of the Southern Pole
accents to the dominant rhythms of the body on the lid. Literally meaning the "nine simili-
itself. An oval foot is echoed in smaller scale by tudes/' the allusion, according to Wan-go Weng,
the mouth rim, which is surmounted by a remov- "is to a song dating to the first half of the first
able lid. The swelling, undecorated surfaces of the millennium B.C. in which listeners are offered
338 piece set off by contrast the main areas of decora- health and happiness, and compared in turn to
tion: peach-shaped cartouches on the broad sides, ageless mountains and mounds, ridges and hills,
MAN GROOMING A HORSE each containing four figures, and, perched on the swelling of a new stream, the constancy of the
the lid, three-dimensional figures of a sheep and moon, the rising of the sun, the indestructibility
I4th-i6th century a bearded old man. of South Mountain, and the luxuriance of pines
Chinese The bald pate of this figure, plus the mushroom and cypresses." Since yang meaning "sheep" is
light green jade with brown markings of immortality (lingzhi) held by his animal com- homophonous with yang meaning "to look up
3
height 9.5 (3 /4J, length 15 (6) panion, identify him as the God of Longevity, respectfully," the whole forms a pictorial rebus for
Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, The Avery who lives at the South Pole in a palace whose the phrase "the Eight Immortals offer up wishes
Brundage Collection garden grows the aromatic and exotic herbs that for longevity."
A squat but powerful groom in belted tunic and contribute to long life. The peach-shaped medal- The Eight Immortals figure prominently in art
boots stands poised on an uneven rocky outcrop- lions below are further references to him, for the from the Yuan dynasty (1279-1368) onward, and
ping with his charge, a stocky Mongolian pony
with short legs, thick body, and halter round his
massive head. Their proximity to each other and
the similarity of their expressions —the groom
grinning, the horse turning to look at him with
lips similarly drawn back —implies a close rela-
tionship between the two. Fine striations texture
the tail and mane of the horse, and a patterned
roundel decorates the back of the groom's tunic.
Comparable figure groups had appeared much
earlier in painting and in ceramic sculpture, but
the lighter mood and naturalism of this pair seem
to have become common only toward the end of
the Song dynasty (960-1279). Epochal changes in
aesthetics and art theory occurred during the
Yuan dynasty (1279-1368), making possible the
greater expressiveness seen here, and that period
too saw the use of roundels containing inscrip-
tions in the Tibetan Thags pa script.
The present piece was clearly built on that late
Song-Yuan stylistic foundation, and probably
dates to the middle Ming period. Beautiful mate-
rial, strong and skillful carving, and an interesting
subject make this a most attractive object for dis-
play, a function for which the sculpted base was
well designed. Possibly the groom, roundel,
smiling face, and horse compose an auspicious
visual pun, or rebus, of the type discussed in
Catalogue 341. H.R.

482 CIRCA 1492