THE SMART MUSEUM OF ART BULLETIN 1990-1991 1991-1992 THE DAVID AND ALFRED SMART MUSEUM OF ART THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO THE SMART MUSEUM OF ART B U L L E T I N 1990-1991 1991-1992 THE DAVID AND ALFRED SMART MUSEUM OF ART THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO CONTENTS Volume 3, 1990-1991, 1991-1992. STUDIES IN THE PERMANENT COLLECTION Copyright © 1992 by The David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art, The University of Chicago, Sectionalism at Work: Construction and Decoration Systems in Ancient Chinese 5550 South Greenwood Avenue, Ritual Vessels 2 Chicago, Illinois, 60637. All rights reserved. ISSN: 1041-6005 Robert J. Poor Three Rare Poetic Images from Japan 18 Louise E. Virgin Photography Credits: Pages 3-14, figs. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, Jerry Kobyleky Museum Photography; figs, la, 2a, 3a, 5a-f, courtesy of Jon Poor / Poor Design, ©1992 Robert Poor. Pages 19-23, figs. 1-3, Jerry Brush and Ink Paintings by Modern Chinese Women Artists in the Kobyleky Museum Photography. Pages 35-46, 51, Jerry Kobyleky Smart Museum Collection 26 Museum Photography. Page 53, Lloyd De Grane. Page 55, Mark Harrie A. Vanderstappen Steinmetz. Page 56, Rachel Lerner. Page 57, John Booz, ©1991. Pages 58, 60, Matthew Gilson, ©1992. Page 61, Lloyd De Grane. Editor: Stephanie D'Alessandro ACTIVITIES AND SUPPORT Design: Joan Sommers Printing: The University of Chicago Printing Department Collections 34 Acquisitions Loans from the Collection Exhibitions and Programs 30 Exhibitions Events Education Publications Sources of Support 63 Grants Contributions Donors to the Collection Lenders to the Collection This issue of the Bulletin, with three articles on and Japanese works of art given in honor of East Asian works of art in the collection of the Professor Vanderstappen by various donors. Since Smart Museum, is dedicated to Professor Emeri­ then, several other works of art have been given in tus Harrie A. Vanderstappen, SVD. Professor recognition of his connoisseurship and dedication Vanderstappen taught Chinese and Japanese art to an oriental study collection at the Smart history in the Art Department of the University of Museum. These gifts are listed elsewhere in this Chicago from 1950 to 1991 and was chairperson publication and some are discussed by Professor between 1970 and 1975. In the decade preceding Vanderstappen in one of the articles also published the opening of the Smart Museum in 1974, he in this issue. The other two, each by a former stu­ established—through the generosity of several dent of Professor Vanderstappen, center on new donors—a study collection of traditional Chinese research in Chinese ritual vessels of the Shang and Japanese ink painting and Edo period Japanese dynasty and on nineteenth-century Japanese suri- color woodcuts. Since 1974, he has guided the mono. All three embody the importance of this curatorial staff of the Museum in the development study collection, in which students, faculty, and of the East Asian collection, which has more than independent scholars have available for sustained tripled in size in the last seventeen years and firsthand examination significant examples of expanded in areas previously unrepresented. over 5,000 years of artistic production in China In conjunction with a symposium sponsored and Japan. The Smart Museum gratefully recog­ by the Art Department and presented by eleven nizes the knowledge, discrimination, and dedica­ former students of Professor Vanderstappen, in tion Professor Harrie A. Vanderstappen has March 1991 the Smart Museum opened Scholarly demonstrated in helping to form this impressive Treasures, an exhibition which consisted of Chinese collection. ROBERT J. POOR Sectionalism at Work: Construction and Decoration Systems in Ancient Chinese Ritual Vessels he ancient Chinese ritual bronzes given by publications of antiquities of this sort as my thesis TProfessor and Mrs. Herrlee Glessner Creel to topic and completed my work under Professor the Smart Museum of Art in 1986 were the first Vanderstappen. It was not until 1989, when I was that I ever handled when I was a student many invited by the Smart Museum to contribute an years ago in Professor Creel's introductory Chinese essay as part of a catalogue of their Chinese collec­ language course. It was an extraordinary experience. tions, that I looked again at the Creel bronzes.1 Although meant to be an introduction to the The auspicious gift of this collection to the Chinese language, in reality the class was much University and its first publication and public exhi­ more than that because for Creel, language led to bition prompted me to look once more at the ves­ culture. The course, then, was a humanistic intro­ sels which had played such an important part duction to Chinese culture by way of our often tor­ in forming my early career. Here is what I have tuous translations of the classics. As a special reward learned about those pieces since my student days to those who survived the rigors of the first two so many years ago. quarters of his course (most did not), Creel brought Fig. 1. Late Shang dynasty, Anyang period, Gu, wine Fig. la. Late Shang dynasty, Anyang period, Gu, in his collection. There on the Shang dynasty Of all of the vessels in the Smart Museum col­ beaker, late 13th-12th century B.C., cast bronze, h. 8 1986.331. bronzes and oracle bones that sat on the table lection, one of the most difficult to discuss is the 11/16 in. (22.1 cm.), diam. mouth 5 1/4 in. (13.3 cm.), before us were actual examples of the ancient writ­ plain trumpet-shaped piece which has been called Gift of Prof, and Mrs. Herrlee G. Creel, 1986.331. ten language. The inscribed bronzes and the other a gu ever since the 11th century A.D., when schol­ ritual artifacts brought life to a historical tradition ars of the Northern Song dynasty published the Relatively plain vessels such as this one may sel illustrates the nature of this abbreviation. One which we had known only through our tenuous first systematic studies of early Chinese ritual have served some special purpose in antiquity. One can barely discern two small dots and a short ver­ translations of difficult classical texts. For me, bronzes (fig. 1). Although the ancient name of the possibility is that they were mingqi\ that is, inex­ tical fin on the bulbous midsection of the piece. majoring in art history with the late Ludwig vessel is not known, it is generally assumed that it pensive vessels which presumably did not require These attenuated motifs are all that is left of the Bachhofer, the opportunity to hold these pieces in served as a wine beaker.2 The decoration of this decoration and were made specifically for burial. conventional animal mask that regularly appears my hands was a rite of passage: I was fascinated by particular vessel is obscured by a thick patina Another prospect is that they were practical drink­ in this location on more fully decorated vessels. every aspect of Chinese art and followed Bachhofer formed from the layers of minerals leached from ing vessels, utilitarian counterparts of fully orna­ Both kinds of gu, plain and ornamented, were from topic to topic with equal enthusiasm, but the original bronze during its prolonged burial in mented ceremonial pieces. Whatever their use, made throughout the Shang and early Western from the moment that I held an ancient bronze in the soil of northern China. Its blue-green surface plain vessels of all types (including the gu), and Zhou dynasties, and their proportions generally my hands, I moved unselfconsciously from an has a jadelike quality greatly admired by connois­ even sets of undecorated vessels, are often found correspond. The shape of our vessel provides a clue interest in all forms of Asian art to a specialized seurs of bronzes. In the past, scholars regarded this alongside elaborately ornamented ones at Shang to the general date of its manufacture: the articu­ research interest in ancient Chinese ritual vessels. patina as evidence of age, and its specific color was dynasty burial sites. In a sense, plain pieces are lation of the foot, waist, and neck into a tightly My interest was nurtured by all my teachers and even considered evidence of provenance. Today, simply abbreviated versions of their more elabo­ structured entity is characteristic of the late phase most especially by Bachhofer and his successor, the the scientific examination of an object's physical rate mates, or, as I shall later suggest, the fully dec­ in the development of the gu. This is likewise vis­ Reverend Harrie A. Vanderstappen. I chose the properties, including its patina, has become an orated ones are just more elaborate versions of the ible in the emphasis given to the raised foot rim, ancient bronze vessels and the Song dynasty important part of bronze studies.3 plain ones. The decoration on the waist of our ves­ edge of the mouth, and pronounced bulge in the 2 SMART MUSEUM BULLETIN STUDIES IN THE PERMANENT COLLECTION 3 waist. Although it is difficult to date a plain vessel of the care that went into the equidistant place­ with much precision, it seems likely that our piece ment of the eyes between the upper and lower was made in the late 13th or 12th century B.C.4 edges of the waist and its central axis. There are Every aspect of the shape of this vessel was other proportional relationships which are even planned according to a system of proportions more difficult to detect, despite their profound based on a design module equivalent to a 16 mil­ impact on composition. The circumference of the limeter square (fig. la).