International studio (48.1913)

THE INTERNATIONAL STUDIO

November, 1912

EPOCHS of CHINESE
and JAPANESE ART

By ERNEST F. FENOLLOSA



Now
ready
for delivery.

Unavoidably
postponed
from I (JI I
on account

of great
difficulties
in manu-
facture.

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large circular.

Professor Fenollosa, after a post-graduate course in phil-
osophy at Harvard, was eventually appointed Imperial
Commissioner of Pine Arts for Japan. In this position
he had charge of the Art Department of the Imperial
Museum at Tokio, and made a deep study of the arts of
the Orient. In this book—his life work—he has at-
tempted not to cast at the reader the many facts at his
command, but rather to interpret them. Believing that
the significant history of art is the history of the bril-
liant creative periods, he has sought the underlying
esthetic motive of each school of design, and has passed
over the periods of imitation. He has made no false
classification by materials, but has shown how the
underlying motive worked out in the painting, sculpture,
ceramics, textiles, metal work and all the manifestations
of art in one period.
The book breaks down the fallacy that Chinese Art has
stood at a dead level for thousands of years. It shows
how Japanese and Chinese Art are parts of a single
esthetic movement, and goes on to establish the sub-
stantial unity of art forms throughout the Pacific, from
Formosa around through Alaska to Mexico.
The illustrations were chosen and reproduced with great
care.
With 18It full-paye illustrations in colors and black-and-white.
Two volumes, in box, 810.00 net; express paid, 810.60.

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Bronzes from the orient.
RELICS FROM THE ANCIENT
CAPITAL OF CHINA RE-
CENTLY ACQUIRED BY THE MU-
SEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY, NEW
YORK
Of ,
In a large and rare collection of old
Chinese bronzes at the Museum of Natural
History, New York, acquired through a
recent Asiatic expedition, some of the fin-
est artistic productions in technique and
form of the ancient Chinese bronze work-
ers have been brought to this country.
They date from the earliest dynasties,
when the art of casting in bronze had
reached its greatest perfection, and from
the great variety in shape, different his-
torical periods, ornamentations and in-
scriptions, the bronzes are considered to be
of the highest archeological and artistic
importance. Nearly all of the bronze ves-
sels were obtained from Hsi-an-fu, in the
Province of Shensi. This place was the

A DUCK-SHAPED INCENSE VESSEL. THE
MING DYNASTY, I368-164O A.D.


former ancient capital of the empire.
Being the residence of the famous Han
emperors, the enthusiastic patrons of art,
this old metropolis became the flourishing
center of Chinese civilization, where the
art of casting bronzes had reached its
greatest perfection, and objects of the most
artistic workmanship were turned out. In
the modern cities of Peking, Hankow or
Shanghai genuine and aged bronze relics
are seldom found. The bronze examples
here pictured represent ceremonial and
sacrificial vessels used in the elaborate
ritual workshop of Buddhism in old tem-
ples and monasteries, though some are,
however, treasured ancestral heirlooms be-
longing to aristocratic old families in Hsi-
an-fu, who parted with them for pressing
need of money. Those in the form of
monsters, birds, animals, etc., were in-
cense burners proper. Incense was burned
in religious worship in China only after the
introduction of Buddhism, from India, in
the first century a.d. In most cases the
incense issued from perforations in the
cover or through the nostrils of the figure
adorning the top. A rare type of a square