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

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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. model from clay any other convenient material. The in diagram Figure 4 explains the lost-wax The mold diagram in Figure 5 suggests how this in its form. A process simplest founder who wishes alternative procedure could have been used to cast to make a bronze cat a 1 begins by making vaguely the bronze vessel shown in Figure (the body only: core This core is then covered was cast was cat-shaped clay (1). the lid separately). The vessel probably with a of and the wax is the exact cast so core layer wax, given upside down that the larger could be desired for the finished cat: the result is awax shape supported from below. Since the clay model carried cat a core with clay (2). A mold is constructed by all the decoration that was to appear on the finished all around the when the mold is at center can packing clay cat; bronze, the object the of the diagram wax core baked the is melted out, but the remains represent either the model on which the mold is in held skewered called or place, by pins chaplets (3). being formed the finished vessel coming out of The mold is then turned upside down and bronze the mold; assume for the moment that it is the is into the the was poured space previously occupied by model. Clay packed around this model and wax (4). Once the metal has solidified the mold is removed in four flat sections; afterwards the model to broken open reveal the casting?a bronze cat could be discarded.3 The mold sections were then with a core.2 a clay reassembled around suitable core, the spacing seems to core Before 1935 it have been universally between mold and being maintained not by were cast assumed that Chinese bronzes in this way, chaplets but by metal spacers of the thickness de from a model wax. starting made of As any foun sired for the casting (these would be incorporated

9 a ca. Fig. 6. Part of the mold for fang yi, nth century b.c., from Anyang Yinxu Miaopu Beidi. After Guo Baojun, Shang Zhou tongqiqun zonghe yanjiu (Beijing, 1981), pi. 31.

core was in the finished vessel). Another inserted to form the hollow foot of the vessel, and the bronze was poured. Parts of the mold for a similar vessel have recently an been unearthed at Anyang foundry site, and they not ca. b.c. h. cm. suggest that the mold diagram in Figure 5 is quite Fig. 7. He, 15th century 22.9 Brundage correct a Collection, Asian Art Museum of San Francisco (B60B53). (Fig. 6). Apparently the mold for fang yi with high-relief decoration would have been cut on removed from the model in eight sections rather into the mold will produce raised lines the than four, and the sections would have carried finished bronze. The thread-relief lines and dots ensure seen are we mortises and tenons to that they could be in Figure 7 therefore just what might to on accurately reassembled after removal from the expect find the earliest decorated bronzes if model. But in all essentials the moldmaking process in their first attempts at cast decoration Chinese to carve on on used by Anyang casters corresponds that illus founders chose to the mold rather than a trated in Figure 5, and it is process which Karlbeck the model. It should be added that thread relief is was a able to reconstruct in his 1935 paper by studying not form of decoration likely to arise in lost-wax a collection of mold said to have been The lost-wax caster must carve on the wax fragments casting. found at Anyang (see Fig. 11). Some of his mold model or the finished bronze; the mold is closed and were access fragments carried mortises and tenons, many he does not have to its inner surfaces. and a few had traces of bronze left in In scorched, the light of subsequent archaeological finds them. Karlbeck concluded that the came Davidson's seems more than ever. fragments reasoning cogent from molds constructed in fitted sections and that The earliest decorated bronze vessel yet known the had been used to cast bronze. a molds from China, small pitcher of the shape called jue, At one reader saw that Karl was at a least immediately discovered in 1975 Erlitou in level dating beck's paper had implications for the history of from about the middle of the second millennium b.c. In an in on Shang casting. article published 1937, Leroy (Fig. 9). Its decoration, which appears the side Davidson suggested that vessels like the tripod of of the vessel opposite the handle, is shown in Figure a Figure 7 might be the earliest of decorated Chinese 9 in rubbing. This simple pattern of lines and dots, on as bronzes.4 Davidson's argument depends the ob which reappears in Figure 7 the border to a more servation that the section-mold allows the more technique elaborate design, is primitive than anything caster access to the interior of the mold: he can carve known at the time Davidson wrote, but it was in as decoration directly the mold surface, and lines produced, he foresaw, by direct working of the 10 ca. 16th Fig. 8. Undecorated jue from Erlitou (3rd stratum), b.c. h. 12 cm. century After Herum chutu Shang Zhou qingtongqi no. 1. (Beijing, 1981), 3

b.c. B mold. By the middle of the second millennium ca. 16th the Chinese caster had discovered that he could Fig. 9. a, Jue from Erlitou (3rd stratum), century b.c.; b, of the side the handle, h. 22.5 cm. After decorate a bronze lines in mold Rubbing opposite object by carving Wen Kanan-sh? Hakubutsukan (Tokyo, 1983), pi. 1; Fong, ed., sections. The had conse discovery far-reaching The Great Bronze Age of China (New York, 1980), fig. 17. an quences, for it established enduring preference for cast rather than coldworked decoration. It ex marks the beginning of the Shang caster's to a of ploration of the possibilities of the section-mold casting, and generation students brought up on it is that technique. the section-mold theory puzzling ever so. At the time Davidson wrote there was no scholars could have done The complete to success new it to archaeological evidence support his conjecture, of the theory has made easy forget and it does not seem to have attracted much notice. the obstacles which once stood in its way and the overcame Karlbeck's arguments for the use of section molds, insights which them. not the section decisive though they were, did fare much better. The delayed but complete victory of seems to Well into the 1960s most writers in the West mold theory have been brought about as two One of these was continued to speak of Chinese bronzes lost-wax chiefly by contributions. John or of the methods used castings else ignored technique altogether. When Gettens's careful study joining a vessel like Western scholars did finally turn their attention by Chinese casters.6 Thirty years ago to were zun 10 have been cited section-mold casting, they apparently the four-ram of Figure would not as casters used the prompted by Karlbeck's work but by the work unhesitatingly proof that Shang to remove a in sections of Chinese scholars who had long since taken lost-wax technique: mold as a sets rams' horns Karlbeck their point of departure.5 Karlbeck's from model with four of spiralling But that the zun is 1935 study had proved that Shang founders used is unthinkable. the conclusion to a rests on that it section molds, but it had not managed make the lost-wax casting the assumption was one issue seem important. cast in piece, and Gettens showed that such 10 In the course of the 1960s, however, the section bronzes are not one-piece castings. In Figure the status ears ram and the small mold theory finally achieved the of horns and of each four dragon on orthodoxy: after thirty years Karlbeck suddenly heads the vessel shoulder, altogether twenty were cast then seemed obviously right and lost-wax seemed separate pieces, individually and in of the obviously wrong. Nowadays it is quite impossible embedded the mold for the remainder to at the zun thus involved look Shang bronzes and think of lost-wax vessel. The fabrication of 11 KARI.IIKCK:Ah vu il,; Mou Id v ,., ,,

io. zun ca. 12th Fig. Four-ram from Hunan Ningxiang, b.c. h. cm. xuan century 58.3 After Zhongguo gu qingtongqi no. ii. 2 Orvar (Beijing, 1976), 17. Fig. Plate from Karlbeck, Anyang Moulds, Bulletin of theMuseum of Far EasternAntiquities, Stockholm7 (1935).

twenty-one separate casting operations, the twenty precast pieces being locked in place during the casting of the twenty-first. was Gettens's paper on joining methods, which one to published in 1967, removed obstacle the section-mold theory by explaining away the features that had seemed to require the lost-wax technique. But the observation which turned the tide against lost-wax casting had already been made in 1962 in a short paper of fundamental importance Wilma Fairbank.7 Mrs. Fairbank out that 12. ca. with detail of h. 20.8 by pointed Fig. Ding, 14th century b.c., leg. an cm. Arthur M. Sackler Smithsonian the Shang moldmaker's technique is openly Courtesy Gallery, nounced his the of 1 almost Institution, Washington, D.C. The rounded tips of the legs by designs: fang yi Figure are a modern restorations. shouts that it was cast in mold divided vertically on axes the of its heavy flanges. can The simplest ideas sometimes be very elusive. a seems to us In Karlbeck's 1935 paper the relationship between relationship which obvious in Figure 1; not to must technique and decoration does leap the eye the explanation simply be that before Mrs. were no one at com because the mold fragments he illustrated in Fairbank who looked the bronzes 11 not at an a very poor condition: in Figure it is all bined interest in their design with knowledge were obvious that the compartments of the decoration of how they made. Nowadays the connection seems correspond to mold sections. But scholars who between decoration and technique self-evi studied bronzes rather than molds also overlooked dent; scholars who do not remember Karlbeck 's 12 After Fig. 14. Mold diagram, section-mold process. Hodges, 11. Artifacts, p. 73, fig.

was Erligang-phase ding of Figure 12, normally divided into three identical sections, each of which same carried the decorative pattern (Fig. 13). The were divisions between sections aligned with the so legs of the vessel that the sections could be easily removed from the model. The decoration of the finished bronze repeats three times in the cir cumference of the vessel, and since the units of the Mold for the of 12. Fig. 13. diagram ding Figure Drawing by decoration to mold sections, the fall Powell. After Ritual Bronzes in the correspond legs Whitney Bagley, Shang at the same as the vertical divisions between M. points Arthur Sackler Collections (Cambridge, Mass., 1987), 100. units 12, fig. (Fig. detail). sec The relationship just described, involving the tioning of the mold assembly, the placement of the legs, and the subdivision of the decoration, calls for or never even his two comments. it is a to arguments, who have read paper, First, relationship specific can see same are re believe in section molds because they the the ding shape; the features differently consequences of the method in the bronzes. But we lated in other vessel types. Second, the relationship see such writers as is no means an automatic of the use the connection only because by consequence our in a Wilma Fairbank and John Gettens drew of section molds. Consider the diagram used to attention to it. standard archaeological handbook explain the were The In the 1960s few pre-Anyang bronzes section-mold technique (Fig. 14). object being a one known to scholars outside China, and the researches cast is portrait head like the shown in Fig on ure is in is of Gettens and Fairbank necessarily centered the 3. The head shaped clay, then the mold formed on it and removed in sections. A consid highly sophisticated bronzes of the Anyang period. to While Fairbank in 1962 could draw attention to a erable number of sections will be required free mold from the but the of the relationship between vessel design and casting tech the model, sectioning was in not in the of nique which instantly obvious Anyang mold will be expressed appearance at not as bronzes, she could only guess how that rela the finished head (the head will have many came as has If the caster's as tionship about. But the excavations of the last faces the mold sections!). is to make a the com twenty years, supplemented by increasingly full signment king's portrait, to nature of the mold will be auto publication of material found earlier, have begun posite assembly on throw light the beginnings of the Shang bronze matically suppressed. can now our In industry. We refine understanding of other words, the section-mold technique does not its character on the it the relationship between design and technique by inevitably stamp objects a we can reconstruct In the case of a head we adding historical dimension: produces. portrait may or to the sequence of events which brought it into being. indeed find it difficult impossible discover more at was To do so we must look closely primitive from the finished object what procedure followed in the mold. If the section castings. constructing a as in The mold for simple round vessel, such the mold technique did express itself the decoration 13 ca. b.c. h. cm. Fig. 16. Ding, 12th century 24.8 Courtesy Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, from Hubei ca. D.C. Fig. 15. Ding Huangpi Panlongcheng, 15th (60.18). b.c. h. cm. no. 2. century 54 After Zhongguo gu qingtongqi xuan,

can case a more of Shang bronzes, the explanation only be that In the of later and sophisticated was casters a an en the decoration invented by whose pur casting, ding from Erligang-phase site, the was poses did not require them to conceal the technique. tire circumference of the vessel decorated, but most On this point the evidence of the primitive the decorator continued to think in terms of self seems are bronzes fairly clear. The earliest substantial contained mold sections (Fig. 15). The lines in are ten were castings yet unearthed China small jue raised, showing that the patterns carved cast in same was from Erlitou, objects easily section molds. directly in the mold sections; the pattern The Erlitou casters evidently began by making carved on each section, so the decoration repeats; undecorated vessels (Fig. 8), for nine of the jue have and, as in Figure 12, the vertical divisions in the no as soon as some are a decoration, but careless mold decoration aligned with the legs, establishing a maker scratched the interior of mold section, he simple but important relationship between the a in a found that scratch the mold section makes decoration and the shape of the vessel. on raised line the finished bronze. The tenth Erlitou This alliance between shape and decoration is which jue, bears the simple decoration of dots and characteristic of Shang bronze design, and it is must us to lines already discussed, bring very close almost guaranteed by the Shang moldmaker's time to the of this discovery (Fig. 9). technique. The technique invited Shang founders The fact that cast was decoration first carved produce repetitive, compartmented designs. The in on were to directly the mold rather than the model might designs which resulted intimately related seem but it is to this that on inconsequential, accident the shapes which they appeared because their artistic owes the Shang tradition its unique char layout reflected the sectioning of the mold, and the acter. one Notice that in Figure 9 only side of the sectioning of the mold had been decided already by carries moment came was vessel decoration. When the the shape of the vessel which to be cast. Later to execute casters the decoration, the craftsman had the generations of elaborated the bronze dec sections in mold front of him, but the bronze vessel oration far beyond anything imagined by Erligang did not exist: at moment must yet that he have been phase craftsmen, but the alliance with vessel shape thinking less about the finished vessel than about the remained intact throughout the Shang period. On was content to a mold sections, and he decorate only the ding of Figure 16, vessel dating from the one one. of them, the largest Anyang period, the legs again coincide with the H boundaries between units of decoration, and in this case are the boundaries marked emphatically with same flanges. Additional flanges give the heavy note of emphasis to the central axis of each unit. Introduced just before the Anyang period (see caster a Fig. 21), flanges offered the dramatic way to announce the organization of his designs and to thereby stress the relationship between deco ration and shape. The prevailing interpretation of the flange does not, however, concede that flanges were adopted for the sake of this emphasis. It holds instead that the flange is the Shang caster's way of scars dealing with mold marks, the which appear on a casting if bronze leaks into the space between imperfectly fitted mold sections. In Figure 15 the ca. b.c. h. cm. band of decoration has three discontinuities on the Fig. 17. Guang, 12th century 23.5 Courtesy Freer of Art, Smithsonian Institution, axes where the mold was and it is com Gallery Washington, divided, D.C. seen were (38.5). monly argued that the flanges in Figure 16 introduced to hide such discontinuities. In other caster to words, the Shang is supposed have made a a source virtue out of defect, exaggerating the mold It overlooks the actual of the flange, which marks and converting them into vertical accents.8 is to be found in Neolithic pottery; its mechanical a This theory, which proposes specific relation equation of mold marks and flanges disregards the to a on two not ship between technique and design, is open many vessels which the do coincide; and, most number of objections, both general and particular. seriously, it supposes that the evolution of 15 ca. b.c. h. cm. Fig. 18. Elephant-shaped zun, 12th century 17.5 Courtesy Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, D.C. Washington, (36.6). ca. b.c. h. cm. Fig. 19. You, 13th century 30.1 Courtesy Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. was Shang design influenced by the caster's desire to overcome the drawbacks of a flawed casting assessment is to reconcile with technique. The distinctly negative of the unflanged castings difficult any on rests as solution to a section-mold technique which this last point theory which describes flanges the can hardly have been shared by Shang founders, if pressing technical problem. on a only because it depends implicitly comparison The testimony of vessels which do carry flanges zun in with the lost-wax method. Yet despite general is no different. The elephant-shaped shown is no reason acknowledgement of the intimate connection be Figure 18 has several flanges, but there tween to the Shang caster's technique and his designs, to believe that they have anything do with hiding were in writers seduced by the theoretical simplicity of lost mold marks. They added, locations where wax unaware casting and of its practical difficulties mold marks could easily have been ground away, curve continue to assume that the lost-wax technique to draw attention to the of the elephant's a at offers better way of casting Shang bronzes than trunk and tail. Other mold divisions fell locations were the technique in which those bronzes less accessible to the finisher, yet those locations were caster invented.9 not supplied with flanges: if the Shang a ever to save If it could be shown that Shang founder had been in the habit of using flanges his to save a on used flanges casting from disfigurement decoration from disfigurement, it is the ele we to we to by mold marks, would indeed be forced phant's hindquarters that should expect find were case conclude that his designs influenced by short them. As in the of the guang, however, the to comings inherent in his technique. But the testi omission of flanges could hardly be said have left not to mony of surviving bronzes, flanged and unflanged this vessel disfigured. It is difficult find where saw no a alike, is that Shang casters connection be the mold joins fell, but only twentieth-century a tween mold marks and flanges. Consider first observer would look for them. more vessel without flanges, the guang of Figure 17. It is The you of Figure 19 is regular in shape than was more obvious that the maker of this vessel concerned the guang and the elephant zun, and thus to or no more avoid eliminate mold marks; it is also obvious typical of Shang bronzes, but it shows sign not a that his way of dealing with mold marks did of connection between mold marks and flanges. on involve flanges. The existence of technically fine The only flange is the swing handle, where it 16 20. zun from ca. 21. zun ca. Fig. Unflanged Zhengzhou Baijiazhuang M3, Fig. Flanged from Zhengzhou Renmin Gongyuan, b.c. h. cm. After Herum chutu b.c. h. cm. 14th century 27.7 Shang Zhou 14th century 24.9 After Herum chutu Shang Zhou no. no. qingtongqi, 33. qingtongqi, 76. cannot meant to a have been conceal mold mark; earliest flanged bronzes. The flange made its first serves to to curve it instead draw attention the of appearance shortly before the Anyang period, the handle, which repeats the shape of the vessel around the end of the Erligang phase. The unflanged proper. The vessel is intricately decorated, and vessel shown in Figure 20 dates from that time. To at must con though least four vertical mold divisions judge from its decoration, it is essentially to have been required release mold from model, it temporary with the first flanged bronzes, and the is Here as on to must unflanged. the guang and zun, flanges decision introduce flanges therefore have casters and mold marks lead independent lives. Flanges been taken by engaged in producing vessels were caster a one. zun 21 added wherever the felt the need of like this The illustrated in Figure shows accent or to a vertical wanted dramatize silhouette. the result of their decision: large curvilinear flanges are The objects shown in Figures 17-19 among the project from the decorated registers on the axes of most lavishly decorated of Shang bronzes, and the the vertical mold divisions. and zun are moreover were to as guang unusually complicated If flanges added conceal mold marks, in Few vessels can we must shape. have posed greater tech the prevailing theory maintains, believe at nical difficulties the moldmaking stage, but the that a caster found the mold marks on the vessel of were resolved without the use 20 so difficulties of flanges. Figure disturbing that he added the flamboyant Such it seen 21 examples make clear that Shang founders devices in Figure to hide them. Surely just not a a did automatically add flange everywhere the opposite is true. The caster who made the vessel no mold division fell, and the examples could be mul of Figure 20 had need to hide mold marks; it takes tiplied indefinitely. Yet numbers alone will not an expert to find any trace of mold marks. What are was disprove the theory that flanges and mold marks mattered to the caster to clarify the organi it in at a connected, because might still be argued that zation of his design time when the growing the was a beginning the flange device for hiding mold intricacy of the patterns had begun to make the marks. In other was to words, the fact that the flange dividing lines between compartments difficult at some as a not was to stage used design element does rule find. His problem not hide flaws but to out the possibility that the design element originated emphasize boundaries. The motive which prompted as a was not device for hiding mold marks. the introduction of flanges concealment but we To deal with this possibility must turn to the advertisement.

17 22. Gui from ca. b.c. h. cm. Fig. Hubei Huangpi Panlongcheng, 14th century 17.4 After Bagley, in Shang Ritual Bronzes the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, fig. 214.

same Another unflanged vessel of about the time But where did the Shang caster find this par in 22. appears Figure The rubbing of the decoration ticular accent? The prevailing theory holds that the was an shows immediately where the mold divided. flange is simply extravagantly enlarged mold at was to cannot The vertical line that point important the mark, but it explain why the enlarged mold two Shang caster because it separated units of deco mark takes the distinctive hooked form seen in on ration. Most writers Chinese bronzes have fallen Figure 2i, and the hooked profile of the earliest a into the habit of calling this line mold mark, but flanges is in fact the key to their ancestry. The same we use term on a common is that really correct? If the "mold profile appears regularly the legs of to mean a caster to mark" line that the would like early bronze vessel type, the flat-legged ding tripod is not a are a eliminate, then this mold mark. Neither (Fig. 12), and such tripods copy in metal shape the horizontal lines above and below the band of which originated at least two thousand years earlier decoration. None of these lines is accidental; all of in Neolithic pottery. Typical of the most archaic a them could have been removed. The vertical line Neolithic versions of the shape is pottery ding not an an is unfortunate by-product of the casting pro from east-coast site of the fourth millennium b.c. an cess, it is essential part of the decoration. When (Fig. 23). The flat legs of the Neolithic vessel are to intricate patterns threatened overwhelm such radially placed, and by way of embellishment their caster outer are or boundary lines, the marked them with the edges pinched serrated. Legs 21. heaviest accent he could find?as in Figure embellished in this way remained a feature of the 18 flat-legged dir?g shape throughout its history. Pottery examples with serrated flat legs have been found at Erlitou and other early Bronze Age sites in are (Fig. 24), and the first flat-legged ding bronze faithful copies of the pottery vessels (Fig. 12). The pottery tripod shown in Figure 24 is contemporary with the primitive bronze jue vessels from Erlitou a and only little earlier than the Erligang-phase 12. re bronze tripod of Figure The bronze ding produces the pottery shape inmetal, and it preserves and the outline of the exaggerates jagged leg. Fig. 23. Pottery ding from Fig. 24. Pottery ding a from Recall how the mold for such flat-legged tripod Shanghai Qingpu Songze Luoyang were level), 4th Donggan'gou, first half was divided 13). The divisions aligned (middle (Fig. millennium b.c. h. of the 2nd millennium with the of the model so that the would 31.7 legs legs b.c. cm. After Feng Xianming After Kaogu 1959.10, not hinder the removal of mold from model; each taoci et al., Zhongguo shi pi. 7:1. left its in the lateral faces of two leg imprint (Beijing, 1982), pi. 7:3 in adjacent mold sections. Since the breaks the band of decoration also coincided with the legs and the a mold divisions, flange could be introduced be two chosen to use the lost-wax bronzes tween adjacent units of decoration merely by method, Shang would look different. Yet if we ask how the extending the curly part of the corresponding leg very section-mold vessel we upward. technique influenced design, seen 21 a too fall into the habit of the tech Thus the flanges in Figure have curly easily regarding as a known fixed and outline because they copy the serrated legs of flat nique quantity, unalterable, which modified the caster's we legged tripods. An embellishment which could be actively intentions; a at that the caster was forced the limitations added to the leg of tripod could be added the imagine by a to some sort of with mold joins of any vessel type. From technical point of his technique compromise on on his But the notion of artistic ideas of view, the leg the ding and the flange the original idea. zun are a conceived in the abstract and then equivalent features; the flange is merely imperfectly not to realized in matter is an irrelevant from leg that does reach the bottom of the vessel. importation an Renaissance art A caster would From artistic point of view, the flange supplies theory. Shang at be to hear that his had heavy emphasis just where it is needed most, the probably puzzled technique not vertical break between pattern units. limitations. The section-mold technique did a him to Ifwe consider for moment only the early history force produce compartmented decoration, we nor did it force him to use or to carve of the flange, how should go about describing flanges sharp lines. We will understand the bronzes bet the relationship between this design element and the edged two are ter if we think in rather than caster's technique? The things certainly positive negative at terms. The caster saw not related, but the relationship is not all simple. possibilities, limitations, to and the of bronzes is the of Flanges have nothing do with mold marks; they history Shang history were added to stress vertical divisions in the deco his exploration of the possibilities of the section at mold ration, and when they lie mold join lines it is only technique. because the mold join lines are the boundaries be tween units of decoration. In other words, flanges were were not added for technical reasons, they reasons added for of design. But what made their was addition desirable the compartmented char acter of Shang decoration, and that character owed a its existence to a series of experiments with par was ticular casting technique. Author's Note: An earlier version of this article to the conference La Civilt? Ci?ese Antica, Venice, The history of the flange is evidence enough that presented am to the of that con the formulation influenced April 1-5, 1985. I grateful organizers "technique design" me to to ference for inviting participate, and the Publications would be a very of the events misleading description Fund of the Department of Art and Archaeology, Princeton which make the of bronze a costs made up history Shang casting. University, for grant toward publication which has casters some reason the use of color illustrations. Certainly if Shang had for possible

19 Bronze Art Notes Design, Archives of the Chinese Society of America 16 Bronze (1962): 8-15. Noel Barnard's Casting and Bronze Alloys in i. Orvar Bulletin theMuseum Ancient a more account Karlbeck, Anyang Moulds, of of China (Tokyo, 1961), speculative of Far Eastern Stockholm no con Antiquities, 7 (1935): 39-60. section-mold casting, makes explicit mention of the 2. The direct lost-wax method described here is nection today between technique and design. Among later writings seldom used because it does not allow and on duplicate castings the subject, the papers reprinted in Cyril Smith's A Search because of the risk involved in the model. Structure out destroying original for (Cambridge, Mass., 1981) should be singled for The indirect lost-wax in Greek foundries comments on method, employed their illuminating the relationship between tech as as the seventh the model early century b.c., preserves original nology and artistic invention. intact a section mold on it and then the section 8. seems to by forming using This interpretation, which have originated with mold to a wax model or See Ruth produce models. Whitehouse, Noel Barnard and Wilma Fairbank, has been very widely The Macmillan on Dictionary of Archaeology (London, 1983), p. 112; accepted. Barnard (Bronze Casting, p. 117) included flanges Christian Art Carol C. a H?user, Foundry (New York, 1974); list of expedients for dealing with mold marks; Fairbank Bronze N.Y. as a Mattusch, Greek Statuary (Ithaca, 1988). (Piece-Mold Craftsmanship, pp. 12-13) described them For no obvious models seem never to have been 3. reason, design element "evolved from the practical requirements of reused are unknown by Shang founders; duplicate castings craftsmanship." bronzes R. Ritual Bronzes in the an among Shang (see Bagley, Shang 9. Fairbank's 1962 paper (pp. 9-10) attributes unqualified M. in Arthur Sackler Collections, Cambridge, Mass., 1987, superiority to the lost-wax method. The same assessment is section Molds are too much dam in William troduction, 2.2). ordinarily implicit Watson's discussion of Shang metal in removal from a to be used Frontiers aged casting again. technology (Cultural in Ancient East Asia, Edinburgh, Toward a of Chinese to cite a more recent 4. J. Leroy Davidson, Grouping Early 1971, pp. 72-79), example, and it forms Parnassus Davidson cornerstone Bronzes, 9.4 (April 1937): 29-34, 51- cited the of Noel Barnard's oft-repeated argument for not the of but a similar vessel in Berlin. the of in tripod Figure 7 formerly independent origin Chinese metallurgy: Barnard's most was casters 5. Of these the notable Shi Zhangru, whose view, if Chinese had known of the lost-wax process, of the from never comprehensive study Shang bronze industry dates they would have used section molds (see e.g. Monumenta Yin dai de zhu Lishi S?rica 1955: tong gongyi, Zhongyang Yanjiuyuan 22, 1963, pp. 225-227). Perhaps the confusion arises 26 Yuyan Yanjiusuo jikan (1955): 95-129. ultimately from comparing textbook abstractions (the section 6. Rutherford Methods in the John Gettens, Joining mold process, the lost-wax process) rather than actual casting Fabrication of Ancient Chinese Bronze Ceremonial Vessels, techniques. Most writers who discuss "the section-mold Science inExamination Art that term a Application of ofWorks of (Museum of process" understand by procedure far simpler than Fine The is one to cast zun Arts, Boston, 1967), pp. 205-217. subject treated the used the four-ram of Figure 10, and few more in the same author's The Freer seem to aware to extensively Chinese Bronzes, be that the procedures commonly referred Volume Technical Studies as note II, (Washington, D.C, 1969). "the lost-wax process" often involve section molds (see Wilma Piece-Mold and 2 7. Fairbank, Craftsmanship Shang and Bagley, Shang Ritual Bronzes, introduction, section 2.6). 20