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This set is the second installation in a three-volume catalog of the Sackler collection of ancient Chinese bronzes at Harvard University, undertaken by some of the premier scholars in the field. Robert W. Bagley's Shang Ritual Bronzes in the Arthur M. Sackler Collections (Arthur M. Sackler Foundation, 1987) and Jenny F. So's forthcoming Eastern Zhou Ritual Bronzes from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections complete the set. Rawson's contribution starts with Volume IIA, a survey of Western Zhou (c.1050-771 B.C.) bronze types, with more emphasis on dating of shapes and designs than on the use or meaning of the vessels. A wealth of appendixes include information on archaeological sites, inscriptions, and detailed laboratory analyses of bronze samples. Volume lib is the catalog itself, with a full-page color photograph of each vessel followed by a detailed description and comparisons with relevant pieces from other collections. Although probably not of much interest to the general public, this work gathers a tremendous amount of information for specialists and researchers.
The bronze ritual vessel, the defining artifact of early Chinese civilization, is the subject of this monumental study of Shang ritual bronzes in the Arthur M. SAckler Collections. A Comprehensive introduction, the most thorough treatment of Shang bronzes in any language, lays the foundation for 104 catalogue entries, many of which explore in greater detail specific problems in casting technology, epigraphy, vessel typology, and provincial bronze styles. COlor plates of all the Sackler bronzes are supplemented by rubbings, details, and more than 500 comparative illustrations.THroughout the book the author has made systematic use of the astonishing archaeological discoveries of the last 15 years, discoveries which include major finds of pre-Anyang bronzes and the unprecedented excavation in 1976 of an intact Shang royal tomb. NO less revealing, however, are technical studies of Chinese bronzes carried out in the West, including studies of the bronzes catalogued here, for Dr. BAgley shows technical factors to have played a crucial role in the development of the Shang artistic tradition. BY giving special attention to the formative stages of the Shang bronze industry, he is able to trace in precise detail the complex interaction of technique and design which led from modest beginnings at Erlitou to the spectacular bronzes of the Anyang period (c.1300-1030 BC). IN the spirit of Jean Bony's remark that "each moment has its right to be considered ultimate," pre-Anyang bronzes are treated not as stepping stones to the more familiar bronzes of Anyang times but as objects deserving attention in their own right. NEvertheless Anyang bronzes become at once less familiar and more intelligible when viewed in a developmental perspective, and the strict historical approach taken here calls into question current interpretations of their decoration. TEn years in the making, this book will be of interest not only to students of Chinese archaeology but also to historians of technology, to art historians interested in the process of artistic invention, and to archaeologists concerned with the comparative study of ancient civilizations.
The supreme art form of ancient China was the bronze ritual vessel. Kings and nobles offered food and drink to their ancestors in spectacular cast bronze containers which served to advertise the owner's wealth and power no less than his piety. Many of the bronzes eventually found their way into the tombs of their owners, where they lay undisturbed for centuries or millennia until accidental discovery or the archaeologist's spade brought them once more to light. The vast collection of Chinese bronzes formed by the late Dr. Arthur M. Sackler ranges over the entire Bronze Age. The bronzes of the Eastern Zhou period, 8th to 3rd century BC, are the subject of this third and concluding volume of the comprehensive catalogue of the collection. In a thorough and up-to-date introduction, Dr. Jenny So, Assistant Curator of Ancient Chinese Art at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, gives a detailed account of the history of Eastern Zhou bronzes. Particularly valuable is Dr. So's systematic use of the latest archaeological discoveries to trace regional and chronological developments and to study the political context in which bronzes were made and used. An especially valuable supplement to the volume is a major study of bronze bells coauthored by an archaeologist and an acoustical physicist, Professor Lothar von Falkenhausen of UCLA and Professor Thomas D. Rossing of Northern Illinois University. The Sackler Collection includes twenty-one bells, which were employed in the same offering rituals as the bronze vessels. Ninety color plates provide full documentation of the Sackler bronzes and over 560 black-and-white comparative illustrations help to set them in the context providedby archaeological research. Scholarly appendices report elemental composition data on the bronze alloys, lead-isotope ratios, and thermoluminescence dating tests of clay core material.
Nicely produced catalog for an exhibition at the Denver Art Museum. Features 43 ceramic and bronze jars, bowls, cups, and flasks, and traces the progression of Chinese design and decoration from its beginnings at the hands of Neolithic potters up to the creation of funerary wares by Han and Tang cra
Since the beginning of the twentieth century, hundreds of thousands of documents of all sorts have been unearthed in China, opening whole new fields of study and transforming our modern understanding of ancient China. While these discoveries have necessarily taken place in China, Western scholars have also contributed to the study of these documents throughout this entire period. This book provides a comprehensive survey of the contributions of these Western scholars to the field of Chinese paleography, and especially to study of oracle-bone inscriptions, bronze and stone inscriptions, and manuscripts written on bamboo and silk. Each of these topics is provided with a comprehensive narrative history of studies by Western scholars, as well as an exhaustive bibliography and biographies of important scholars in the field. It is also supplied with a list of Chinese translations of these studies, as well as a complete index of authors and their works. Whether the reader is interested in the history of ancient China, ancient Chinese paleographic documents, or just in the history of the study of China as it has developed in the West, this book provides one of the most complete accounts available to date.
This book traces the evolving uses of writing to command assent and obedience in early China, an evolution that culminated in the establishment of a textual canon as the foundation of imperial authority. Its central theme is the emergence of this body of writings as the textual double of the state, and of the text-based sage as the double of the ruler. The book examines the full range of writings employed in early China, such as divinatory records, written communications with ancestors, government documents, the collective writings of philosophical and textual traditions, speeches attributed to historical figures, chronicles, verse anthologies, commentaries, and encyclopedic compendia. Lewis shows how these writings served to administer populations, control officials, form new social groups, invent new models of authority, and create an artificial language whose mastery generated power and whose graphs became potent objects. Writing and Authority in Early China traces the enterprise of creating a parallel reality within texts that depicted the entire world. These texts provided models for the invention of a world empire, and one version ultimately became the first state canon of imperial China. This canon served to perpetuate the dream and the reality of the imperial system across the centuries.
"In Classical China, crafted artifacts offered a material substrate for abstract thought as graphic paradigms for social relationships. Focusing on the fifth to second centuries B.C., Martin Powers explores how these paradigms continued to inform social thought long after the material substrate had been abandoned. In this detailed study, the author makes the claim that artifacts are never neutral: as a distinctive possession, each object—through the abstracting function of style—offers a material template for scales of value. Likewise, through style, pictorial forms can make claims about material “referents,” the things depicted. By manipulating these scales and their referents, artifacts can shape the way status, social role, or identity is understood and enforced. The result is a kind of “spatial epistemology” within which the identities of persons are constructed. Powers thereby posits a relationship between art and society that operates at a level deeper than iconography, attributes, or social institutions. Historically, Pattern and Person traces the evolution of personhood in China from a condition of hereditary status to one of achieved social role and greater personal choice. This latter development, essential for bureaucratic organization and individual achievement, challenges the conventional opposition between “Western” individuals and “collective” Asians."