Highlights from Chinese Art

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The ding, a three-legged ritual vessel whose origins predate the legends and cloudy early history of the Shang dynasty (about 1600-1023 B.C.), was used to hold food offered to ancestral spirits. The ding was also a ground ornament. Fantastic creatures, symbols, even written characters recording ritual procedures were cast into its surface.

In its typical Shang form the ding was a sturdy, lidless vessel mounted on straight legs. Contact with other cultures introduced new elements in its shape and ornament as well as new uses. By the time of the Eastern Zhou dynasty (771–256 B.C.) the ding had acquired the refined form in which it appears here. It had also been secularized; although the Shang tradition of burying bronzes with the dead continued, they were also presented as state gifts to foreign rulers and preserved and handed down as symbols of family honor and status.

The Lidow ding is related stylistically to a cache of fine bronzes discovered near the village of Liyu (northern Shanxi province) in 1932. It exemplifies the high level of bronze casting attained by Eastern Zhou metalsmiths despite the anarchy and constant warfare that plagued the period. The animal forms of an earlier era have become finely stylized and abstracted; an interlace of zoomorphic and geometric elements covers the entire surface of the ding's body and lid. The curvilinear pattern in an overlapping two-layer relief contains forms suggestive of rams, birds, and felines. Restless spirals, S-curves, triangles, and scales are composed in ribbonlike bands. On the "knee" of each cabriole leg is an inlaid animal mask, an image from earlier ding forms.

The interment of ceramic figures with the dead was widely practiced in the Tang period (618–907), but the number and kinds of objects were strictly controlled in accordance with the social position or political status of the deceased. With imposing demeanor and resolve these two figures represent the dignity of a nobleman. They were once placed in a tomb containing a panoply of ceramic replicas of officials, guardians, household retainers, animals, utensils, and courtesans, all intended to accompany the deceased in the afterlife.

The scale of these unusually large sculptures, of a white clay body glazed with familiar greens and ochers of Tang funerary figures, is one indication of the dead nobleman's high rank. Their costumes—embroidered sleeves, long skirts, sashes, elegant shoes—are courtly; the left-hand figure is military, identified by the tabard buckled over his shoulders. Each man stands on a rocklike pedestal, also a sign of rank, as are their headdresses.

In keeping with their roles the figures bear stern, somewhat remote expressions. Their full-fleshed faces, bowed mouths, aquiline noses, elongated ears, and (in the military figure) glaring eyes are traits that, greatly exaggerated, also appear in representations of guardian figures possessing extraordinary powers. Their vigor and realism exemplify the nature of the Tang dynasty, an era of political stability, artistic achievement, and economic growth.

Flourishing in the Yuan dynasty, blue-and-white ceramic ware soon dominated the export market; demand for it spread rapidly. A plate of this design and size was probably made for the Near Eastern market and would have been used on formal or ritual occasions, given as a gift, or awarded for services. This example is typical of early blue-and-white Yuan ceramics, with its foliated rim, unglazed base, and freely drawn wave motif. The technique of blue underglaze with white reserved areas, all with a clear feldspathic overglaze, emerged from innovative Yuan ceramic experiments.

The feathery wave motif circles the plate's rim. Three additional concentric tiers of waves give the plate's surface a lively and unpredictable pattern. The two middle wave tiers are interrupted by six lobed cloud-collar patterns, which echo the rim shape. Designs in the cloud collars include lotuses, abstract foliage, melons, grapes, bamboo, and morning glories. Some scholars believe the cloud-collar shape derives from designs in Persian metalwork or Mongol and Tatar embroideries; others suggest that it derives from Buddhist designs representing the four cardinal directions.

While the overall program of the plate's design is Islamic in taste, its primary motifs are Chinese. For example, the center medallion's eight partitions contain auspicious Buddhist symbols and the medallion itself represents the Buddhist Wheel of Law. Underneath the rim is a Near Eastern scrolling floral design of lotus or aster blossoms alternating with pomegranates.

The elaborate scene on this small tray depicts a conventional gathering of literati who have just finished a sociable banquet. Within the pavilion a guest nods over the laden table; at left, another departs, followed by a servant bearing a qin , a Chinese stringed instrument. The artist delighted in natural forms, as seen in the pine, flowers, planes, and contortions of the rockery, in the perspective of the pavilion's facade and the furnishings within (the remains of food are shown in the dishes), and in the band of lingzhi mushrooms on the border. His skill in carving and pleasure in patterning pervade the entire plate. The background diaperwork of rosettes and meanders represents earth and sky.

Lacquer objects were made in China , Japan , and Korea from before recorded history; Chinese palace walls dating to the fourteenth century B.C. bore lacquer decorations. Laboriously purified from the sap of a sumac ( Rhus verniciflua ), lacquer can carry several pigments, but red, black, or a combination were used most frequently. Techniques for ornamenting the surface of lacquerwork are numerous and complex, but most often the lacquer is applied over a plain or carved wood core, each coat requiring a long period of careful curing, until the wood is completely covered. The built-up lacquer surface can also be carved. Lacquer has extraordinary adhesive qualities; once cured, it is virtually impervious to moisture, alcohol, food acids, or decay.

The Qing dynasty in China was founded in 1644 by a coup d'etat. Having been asked to come south to Beijing to help quell a rebellion, the Manchus of the north obliged, then occupied the capital and proclaimed their rule. Fortunately they greatly admired Chinese culture, adopting its more conservative institutions and a reactionary Confucianism. Despite this, and despite a period of civil unrest and political realignment, ceramics, architecture, and painting flourished.

This vigor in Qing arts is nowhere better seen than in the work of Shitao, one of the most original and formally creative artists in all Chinese paintings. A descendant of Ming royalty, Shitao was an accomplished calligrapher, poet, painter, and art theorist. Although ordained a Buddhist monk, he chose travel over seclusion and enjoyed intellectual and aesthetic relationships with other artists and poets.