Shang Ritual Bronzes: Casting Technique and Vessel Design Author(S): Robert W
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Shang Ritual Bronzes: Casting Technique and Vessel Design Author(s): Robert W. Bagley Source: Archives of Asian Art, Vol. 43 (1990), pp. 6-20 Published by: University of Hawai'i Press for the Asia Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20111203 Accessed: 27/08/2010 12:59 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=uhp. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. University of Hawai'i Press and Asia Society are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Archives of Asian Art. http://www.jstor.org iA. Fig. Detail of Fig. ib, Fang yi. 6 Shang Ritual Bronzes: Casting Technique and Vessel Design Robert W. Bagley Princeton University 1 he past three decades have seen a considerable our change in understanding of Shang ritual owes ar bronzes. Although it much to recent was chaeological discoveries, this change brought about mainly by work done outside the field of archaeology, in the study of fabrication methods. was a The starting point study of Shang mold was fragments carried out by Orvar Karlbeck, who to able show conclusively that Shang founders did not on rely the lost-wax process.1 Karlbeck 's paper was published in 1935, but his work attracted little an notice at the time; it was only in the 1960s that obvious correspondence between the appearance of Shang bronzes and the technique used to make them was finally recognized. This belated discovery has required the history of the bronzes to be rewritten a from point of view which takes casting technique account. art can no into The historian longer ignore or to an technique relegate it appendix, for neither nor the character of individual objects the history as a can of Shang design whole be understood without reference to fabrication methods. art no But if the historian longer enjoys the luxury of discussing design without mentioning neither can the historian of metal tech technology, ib. ca. b.c. h. cm. Fig. Fang yi, 12th century 29.8 Winthrop afford to to do so would be nology ignore design: Collection, Harvard University Art Museums (1943.52.109). to assume never that Shang casters made technical on con decisions artistic grounds. Shang bronzes front us not to inescapably with the problem of under attempt do without the words "technique" standing how technique and design interacted, and and "design," but the examples discussed should a first we to step toward solving this problem is perhaps make it clear that if continue analyze Shang to we are in terms terms so we recognize that formulating it that bronzes in artificial, must proceed with no caster care. as as Shang would have understood. The dis great No formulation simple "technique we tinction make between technique and design is influences design" will do justice to the experience a construct inherited from our own intellectual of casters who did not think in these terms. the caster two a tradition; Shang learned the things The object shown in Figure 1, vessel of the type we art can together. The firm line draw between history fang yi, serve to introduce the main features of more to and the history of technology has do with late Shang bronzes. It was cast about 1100 b.c., the structure of our universities than with the at perhaps Anyang, site of the last Shang capital. making of Shang bronzes. The present article will The principal motif of its decoration is an animal 7 ca. Fig. 3. Bronze head (Sargon of Akkad?) from Nineveh, b.c. Max 2370 Iraq Museum, Baghdad. After Mallowan, Early Mesopotamia and Iran (London, 1965), fig. 74. decoration and all, the sunken lines should not be to cut were expected resemble lines in metal: they not a carved in metal but in the clay of preliminary caster a model. The began with clay model of the vessel he wished to make, formed a mold on the 2. of a ca. 12th b.c. Dimensions of to cast a Fig. Detail fang yi, century model, and used the mold bronze replica area shown, 4.5 7 cm. Museum of Art, New owes by Metropolitan of the model. The decoration of Shang bronzes M. York, Gift of Arthur Sackler (1974.268.2). much of its character to the fact that itwas executed in clay rather than in metal. most face with staring eyes, the taotie, which occupies But this is only the superficial influence of on on a the main register the vessel proper and reappears the technique the vessel's appearance, matter on upside down the lid. Narrower registers contain of the caster's handwriting; casting technique holds creatures seen to more in profile. These animal motifs draw the key much fundamental features. Tech a a the viewer's attention irresistibly. Set off by nique plays role in any art form, of course, but seems a ground pattern of dense, finely carved spirals, they in the Shang design tradition it for time to not are do interact with each other but held fast in have played the leading role. To understand how a came we a symmetrical array of clearly defined compart this about must consider for moment the are uses was ments. The compartments bounded by heavy to which bronze put in ancient China. vertical and horizontal the In was flanges plain strips, plain China metal used throughout the Bronze strips coinciding with gaps in the flanges. Age to make weapons and ritual vessels. It was not An enlarged detail of the decoration of another employed for other purposes which to us, the heirs one fang yi suggests obvious connection between the of Egyptian and Near Eastern civilization, seem more appearance of these objects and the technique used familiar and more natural. The Akkadian to make them The fine sunken lines with (Fig. 2). bronze portrait head shown in Figure 3, dating from a their vertical walls and sharp edges point imme the late third millennium b.c., is royal monument to a diately decoration made by casting. The drafts of kind abundantly represented in the art of the are manship of these energetically drawn, precisely ancient Near East. Such objects unknown in a we a angular lines is utterly unlike that of craftsman ancient China, where find only rather feeble on no using tools cold metal, and it immediately interest in representational art and interest at all bronzes from the of in or distinguishes Shang products portraiture the depiction of rulers. Shang other is were not metalworking traditions. The effect indeed metalworkers required by their patrons to so unfamiliar that it a nor were has persuaded few observers depict the human figure, they expected to unacquainted with casting technique that the bronze describe other features of the everyday world, some art in as a decoration copies lost form executed and result they enjoyed considerable freedom But was seem another medium. since the vessel cast, in certain directions. In particular, they to 8 Fig. 4. Mold diagram, lost-wax process. After Henry Hodges, 10. Artifacts (London, 1976), p. 72, fig. to have been free experiment with their casting to con method and develop forms of decoration to are genial it. Design and technique closely related in Shang bronzes because the designs emerged from experiments in casting technique. The early history as an of Shang bronzes might almost be described exploration of the possibilities of the section-mold technique. But a formulation of this kind is not very on meaningful in the abstract; it takes substance only 1. can Fig. 5.Mold diagram for the fang yi of if specific illustrations be adduced. If the designs Figure Drawing by out Whitney Powell. grew of the casting technique, how exactly did a this happen? How does casting method influence a design? Can technique direct the actions of the craftsman who uses it? To answer these we must questions begin with dryman knows, however, another procedure is we the technique itself. Nowadays believe that available to the bronze caster, one which does not bronzes were cast in section but this wax Shang molds, employ models. If the clay mold in Figure 4 a is fairly new conviction. Before i960 most West had been constructed in fitted sections, so that it ern students of it the bronzes took for granted that could be removed from the model in pieces and then Shang founders used the lost-wax process. Scholars reassembled around the core, there would have been no who had particular interest in technical matters no need for amodel that could be melted away. The have of caster at may simply thought the lost-wax process would have been liberty to construct his as fine or synonymous with casting.