Ancient China: Men and Gods in the Middle Kingdom

By Helmut Brinker

Since the last big China exhibition held in Zürich in 1980-81, spectacular discove- ries have been made in the People's Republic of China. Archaeologists have unearthed superb new masterpieces of an artistic tradition that stretches back many thousands of years. A good proportion of the 200 pieces on display, described in 119 entries in the catalogue, which are being shown for the first time outside China, have been lent by 19 different museums and archaeological institutions in the People's Republic. When they were carrying out the selection, Prof. Roger Goepper, Dr Jeonghee Lee-Kalisch, and Dr Peter Wiedehage, working in close cooperation with the China Cultural Relics Promotion Centre, Peking, constantly bore the theme of the exhibition in mind. The new facts, data, and materials that have come to light, especially in the last two decades, permit us to draw a clearer picture of behaviour and thought in Ancient China. They offer better insights into its cosmology, religion, and rituals providing deeper understanding of the contents of graves and the cult of the dead these reflect. These rich finds help us reconstruct political power relationships and social frameworks, reach a better understanding of mythical figures and historical personalities, and gain fascinating insights into the daily life and the material culture of Ancient China.
The works on display are much more than representations of an impressive archaeological record of the emergence and early development of Chinese culture between about 5000 BC and the end of the Han Dynasty in the early 3rd century AD. They also compellingly
evoke their original functions and the context in which they played a role, reflecting regional and temporal changes in form and style. In a quite unprecedented way, these pieces illustrate ancient Chinese approaches to the depiction of divinities, mythical animals and legendary figures, as well as human beings in both life and death. Apart from being mindful of the historical considerations, our selection has taken account of regional differences and the aspects of genre and medium, providing an overview of early masterpieces in terracotta sculpture, ceramics, jade, bronze, lacquer, and silk extending over six millennia.

The earliest recorded phase of Chinese art in which humans and gods were depicted is represented by a series of neolithic painted ceramics and prehistoric idols in human and animal form, and above all by recent jade finds of the highest aesthetic and technical quality. These pieces, excavated in 1986 in Fanshan, Yuhang district, province of Zhejiang, stem from the Liangzhu culture, which is dated to about five thousand years. A strange clay cone, about 157 cm high and covered largely with knobs and incised rings, was found in Hubei in 1987. Attributed to the Qujialing culture that flourished around 3000 BC, it has been interpreted as a phallic symbol which may have served as an object of worship in late-neolithic fertility rites.

Mysterious masks
The classical phase of Chinese art under the Shang Dynasty, 13th-11th century BC, is superbly represented by objects unearthed in 1976, in Grave No. 5 at Xiaotun, near Anyang, Henan province. So far, this is the only group of finds which could be associated with a royal personage, mentioned in oracle inscriptions. Fu Hao, wife of the Shang ruler Wuding, was renowned as a powerful army leader, head of state ritual ceremonies, and influential feudal mistress. Her grave goods included several sacrificial vessels and a massive ceremonial axe embellished with the heads of tigers and human beings in bronze on some of which her name is cast, miniature jade figures of humans and animals, personal toilet accessories, and an ivory vessel embellished with relief engraving and rich inlays of turquoise, probably also intended for personal use.

Another highlight of the exhibition is formed by the objects of Sanxingdui, discovered in two sacrificial pits near Guanghan, about 40 kilometres north of Chengdu, capital of Sichuan Province in southwestern China in 1986. These striking, enigmatic bronzes are from the high culture of Shu, which flourished during the Sang Dynasty from the 13th to the 10th century BC. In contrast to the nucleus of Chinese civilization around Anyang with its concentration on the motif of mythical creatures, the Shu culture gave the human image a central place. In terms of both its artistry and the technical finesse of its casting, the bronze figure of a slender man, measuring 262 cm with pedestal, is a truly unique masterpiece (Photo 1) . Since no contemporaneous written source has yet come to light, the function and meaning of the statue remain unclear. We can only speculate as to whether it represents a divinity, an image of some legendary Shu ancestor, or a royal priest or shaman performing a ritual act, an unknown ceremonial object grasped in his outsized hands. Equally mysterious are the great symbolic wheels and eyes in bronze, huge masks with elaborate brow ornaments, protruding animal ears, and telescoping eyes, or the human heads - two with applications of thin gold leaf in the facial area - done in an expressive, angular idiom for which, as yet, no stylistic parallel has been found in Chinese art. Perhaps these bronze heads and masks, mounted on torsos of clay or wood, were once used in ritual ceremonies.

Mythical guardians
The richness and diversity of art under the Eastern Zhou Dynasty are illustrated by truly unique works from Chu, a city that dominated southern China during the 7th to the 3rd centuries BC. The centre of this culture was located in the present province of Hubei, where elaborately furnished princely graves consisting of several subterranean chambers have been found. Mythical guardians wearing antlers and with protruding tongues evoke the supernatural religious ideas of Chu and its belief in the afterlife, as do the winged hybrid creatures that may have accompanied the souls of the dead into the world beyond, or have served shamans as bearers and messengers during their ecstatic transports. A highly elaborate mythical bronze animal ornamented with malachite inlay, found in 1990 in Grave No. 9 at Xujialing, Xichuan district, Henan province, one of a pair that may once have supported a drum, contrasts with a legendary creature with the head of a tiger, a simple carving relying on the natural shape of tree root, which was discovered in 1982 at Mashan, Jiangling district, Hubei province, in the grave of a noblewoman who died between 340 and 278 BC. The piece bears traces of lacquerwork and reptiles carved in fine relief on its slender legs, and is considered the oldest extant woodcarving of its kind.

Changes in the religious and cultural climate, leading to a new attitude to man, his daily environment, and to the gods he worshipped are revealed by the art of the Han Period. Flourishing for four centuries before and after the birth of Christ, the Han was characterized by an enlightened rationality, a utilitarian outlook, and a tendency to realistic, sometimes even drastic, description. Detailed clay models give an idea of its architecture, while vivid depictions on narrative relief tiles or in the form of clay figures evoke the festivities, ceremonies, and diversions of the period, domestic and erotic scenes, everyday tasks such as alcohol distilling, or the humorous antics of entertainers (Photo 2).

The items on display can truly be claimed to belong to the archaeological sensations of the past few decades, the majority of which - in particular the most spectacular ones - have never been shown outside China before. The State Bureau of Cultural Relics of the People's Republic of China considers the exhibition, which after being shown at the Villa Hügel, Essen, will travel to the Kunsthalle of the Hypo Cultural Foundation, Munich, the Kunsthaus Zrich, the British Museum, London, and the Louisiana Museum, Humlebaezk, to be the most significant ever to have been held in Europe since the foundation of the People's Republic.

Kunsthaus Zürich
Heimplatz 1
CH-8024 Zürich
Tel: +41-1-2516765
Fax: +41-1-2512464

Prof. Helmut Brinker is attached to the University of Zürich, Switzerland