DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68516#0150
CHINESE ART
above for ever orders the holders of the Empire of Chou to pay honour to
their departed sire. And We on our part shall not venture to let lapse
our beneficent covenant with our Minister the Son of Heaven. Wherefore
is recorded our Royal command to make a sacrificial vessel to the Duke
of Chou.’1
This two-handled bowl (152) is, I take it, a much later, more sophisti-
cated version of Kuei type. The design has become purely formal and
geometric, but again what choice and invention it shows. It is an entirely
new conception but carried out with the same consistency and niceness
of judgment. Look at the suggestion of force and power given by this
raised relief and yet with a new feeling for elegance. Here is a splendid
example in which everything shows an exquisite sensibility. The plastic
idea is entirely distinct and is supported throughout. We feel the
rightness of this tall simple base to support the flattened spread of the
bowl whose forms suggest its capaciousness, and with what a subtly
inflected curve this bulging belly leads back to the neck which stops
just in time not to contradict that idea of the squat spreading bowl. We
can follow with delight every detail here, nothing is merely there by the
way. How well chosen is the scale of the diamond shapes on the bowl,
almost the only ornament that catches the eye, though in between there
is a network of delicately incised lei or thunder patterns. The ridges
were reduced, but the idea of massive strength they give is found again
in the rounded knobs.
These bronzes well illustrate the peculiar aesthetic quality of Chou
art: the rigorous co-ordination of the parts in a single unity and the
full sensibility of the handling. It is this tense equilibrium between
sensibility and controlling intelligence which is so fascinating to us.
I find the essentials of plastic harmony in almost their purest most
elemental expression in these bronzes. The imposed condition of
making a vessel is so slight that the plastic imagination of the artist is
left almost entirely free.
1 For a better translation of this difficult inscription see W. P. Yetts’ Catalogue of
the Eumorfopoulos Collection Bronzes, vol. 1, p. 27.
< 114 >
above for ever orders the holders of the Empire of Chou to pay honour to
their departed sire. And We on our part shall not venture to let lapse
our beneficent covenant with our Minister the Son of Heaven. Wherefore
is recorded our Royal command to make a sacrificial vessel to the Duke
of Chou.’1
This two-handled bowl (152) is, I take it, a much later, more sophisti-
cated version of Kuei type. The design has become purely formal and
geometric, but again what choice and invention it shows. It is an entirely
new conception but carried out with the same consistency and niceness
of judgment. Look at the suggestion of force and power given by this
raised relief and yet with a new feeling for elegance. Here is a splendid
example in which everything shows an exquisite sensibility. The plastic
idea is entirely distinct and is supported throughout. We feel the
rightness of this tall simple base to support the flattened spread of the
bowl whose forms suggest its capaciousness, and with what a subtly
inflected curve this bulging belly leads back to the neck which stops
just in time not to contradict that idea of the squat spreading bowl. We
can follow with delight every detail here, nothing is merely there by the
way. How well chosen is the scale of the diamond shapes on the bowl,
almost the only ornament that catches the eye, though in between there
is a network of delicately incised lei or thunder patterns. The ridges
were reduced, but the idea of massive strength they give is found again
in the rounded knobs.
These bronzes well illustrate the peculiar aesthetic quality of Chou
art: the rigorous co-ordination of the parts in a single unity and the
full sensibility of the handling. It is this tense equilibrium between
sensibility and controlling intelligence which is so fascinating to us.
I find the essentials of plastic harmony in almost their purest most
elemental expression in these bronzes. The imposed condition of
making a vessel is so slight that the plastic imagination of the artist is
left almost entirely free.
1 For a better translation of this difficult inscription see W. P. Yetts’ Catalogue of
the Eumorfopoulos Collection Bronzes, vol. 1, p. 27.
< 114 >