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CHAPTER TWO

The Art of the SHANG DYNASTY

(c. 1500 B.C.-1100 B.C.)

CHINESE ART enters its first historical period with the advent, about 1500 B.C., of the Shang dynasty. While the preceding Hsia dynasty is sometimes termed a "historical" dynasty, none of the artifacts discovered can definitely be attributed to the Hsia period. On the other hand, much is known about the Shang dynasty. Ssu-ma Ch'ien, a celebrated historian in the Han period, wrote at length about the Shang rulers. More important, through the discovery and interpretation of inscriptions on oracle bones and sacrificial bronze vessels, modern archaeology has pieced together a picture of the civilization in northern China at this time.

Just as the more ancient civilizations had originated in the valleys of great rivers—the Nile, Tigris, Euphrates, and Indus—so was the center of Shang culture located in the great valley of the Huang Ho, the Yellow River. Among the many Shang sites excavated, the most important is in Honan Province at the ancient site of Anyang, the Shang capital from about 1300 B.C. to about 1000 B.C. Known in Chinese history as Yin, this site had been a famous source of ancient relics for centuries but was not scientifically excavated until the twentieth century. The National Research Institute of History and Philology, under Li Chi, undertook extensive archaeological investigations from 1928 to 1937. The most important among the many sites explored in more recent years has been Cheng-chou. This is believed to have been the site of the earlier Shang capital, Ao.

When compared to the prehistoric civilization which had flourished during the previous one thousand years, marked innovations suggest that this dynasty fostered a fundamentally new society and culture. Outstanding features were the creation of a system of writing comprising some three thousand pictograph-based characters and forming the basis for modern Chinese script; the rise of large towns surrounded by thick walls of pounded earth; new developments in ceramics; advanced stone-carving; innovations such as chariots, chamber burials, and ritual sacrifice; and the emergence of a highly developed bronze culture in which vessels, weapons, and tools were made of metal rather than stone, clay, or wood. At the same time, the persistence of older cultures in isolated enclaves and in the border regions, the survival of the grey pottery, the continued use of Yang Shao and Lung-shan shapes for vessels, and of oracle bones and jade ritual artifacts all suggest a large measure of continuity between the prehistoric culture and that of Shang China.

Here again Western influence may have prevailed, since no truly primitive stages of writing or metalworking have been discovered in China. Both arts had evolved to a high level in Asia Minor some fifteen hundred years earlier. Max Loehr has suggested the northern regions as the connecting passage through which the metal culture was transmitted, but Chinese scholars, such as K. C. Chang, believe these developments to have been indigenous in origin. Recent excavations have brought to light some pre-Anyang stages of the Chinese bronze culture. Although plainer and more crude than later works, these early objects are too advanced to represent a beginning phase (Plate 2). The origin of Chinese metal culture still remains obscure.

The finest Shang bronze works are masterpieces in the area of metal-work and axe the most remarkable among the various art works produced by the Shang people. Cast from molds, perhaps at times by the lost-wax process, and consisting of eight or nine parts copper to one part tin, with small quantities of other metals, these bronzes show a technical mastery which testifies to the high skill of the Shang metalworkers.

The bronze vessels served a twofold purpose: as funeral gifts to be placed in the graves of kings or nobles and as containers for food or wine in the ritual of sacrifice to ancestors or deities. They were often embellished with inscriptions, usually short but sometimes running to several hundred characters. These inscriptions sometimes commemorated a particular occasion—for example: "On the day Kuei-tzu the King bestowed upon Hsiao Ch'en Yi ten ropes of cowry shell. So [he] dedicates to [his] Mother Kuei this sacred vessel.... On this occasion of the holidays for the King's sixth Grand Sacrifice, in the fourth month . . . The Yi family of the Ya nobility." But simple dedicatory inscriptions were more common, such as: "The Yi family dedicates this vessel to its Mother, Hsin, [who came from] the Chi family of the Ya nobility."

Chinese scholars through the centuries have studied these inscriptions. A dependable chronology of Shang and Chou bronzes, based upon these studies, has been compiled in modern times by the eminent Swedish sinologist Bernard Karlgren.

Sacrificial vessels were fashioned in many shapes. Several shapes derived from Lung-shan ceramic forms. The prototypes of other shapes may have been the wooden or bamboo vessels mentioned in the Book of Songs as being used for offerings. Offerings were beverages such as wine or water and foods such as meat or grain. These were offered as ritual sacrifice to the spirits of the dead and to deities representing the forces of nature. Among early peoples, the belief that the universe was inhabited by such spirits was widespread. When properly placated by offerings, such spirits might be well disposed ; otherwise, they were certain to prove malevolent. Even in modern China, this custom is followed by all except the most sophisticated. Until deposed in 1912, the Manchu emperor of China performed the sacred rituals each year, using the ancient ceremonial vessels.

Connoting far more than mere utility, these ritual vessels were major expressions of both religion and aesthetics. Architecture, sculpture, painting, or drawing may each convey central cultural concepts. In Shang China, it was the product of the metalworker which embodied the highest ideals as well as the aesthetic concepts of the Chinese people. The magnificent design and complex symbolism displayed by the kuang-shaped wine vessel in the Cincinnati Art Museum (Plate 3) are typical of these ritual bronzes. The kuang, largest of the ritual vessels, resembles a sauce boat and was used to make offerings of black-millet wine. The most impressive feature of this bronze is the rich decoration covering every inch of the surface. The ornate patterns include symbols of magical purport.

The major symbolic motif appearing on this vessel, and many others, is the tiger. This motif is repeated four times, as a tiger mask on each side of the vessel and in more plastic form at the front and back of the cover. Rather than a naturalistic animal, this is a magical creature. In the representations at front and rear, potency is increased by phallic horns having incised symbols for thunder and rain. The tiger masks upon the body are extremely stylized—composed of four separate features. A fang, an eye, an eyebrow, and an ear are placed one directly above another in a vertical arrangement. The hook-shaped fangs, prominent even in cases where other parts of a composite mask are derived from birds or horned animals, identify the tiger mask.

In later times the Chinese called these masks t'ao t'ieh, meaning glutton, and thought they were placed on these vessels to warn the user against gluttony. This proves only that, by the third century B.C., the forgotten magical symbolism had been replaced by a rationalistic concept.

Actually, the tiger had been a magical symbol since neolithic times. One of the prehistoric sites has yielded a tiger amulet. Its purpose was surely to protect the wearer from evil influences for, even today, Chinese children wear tiger caps to ward off evil spirits. Throughout Chinese history the tiger has been revered as an auspicious and sacred animal, associated with earth and mountains. He was considered the chief animal of the terrestial realm, just as the dragon was conceived of as the ruler of the sky. The west was called the "tigrine quarter" in a Chou inscription. In the art of the Han period, the tiger always symbolized the west when the four directions were represented by animals. Since, in the imperial palace, the earth deity's altar was located on the west side, it would appear that the tiger represented the earth deity, upon whom the fertility of the fields depended.

Birds are a second motif on the Cincinnati kuang, one appearing in back on the handle and one in front directly below the tiger's chin. They are portrayed by eyes, wings, claws, and projecting beaks. Probably they represent sun and light, in contrast to earth and darkness associated with the tiger and the western direction, in which the sun sets. An archaic pictograph consists of a bird with a radiant sun for its head. In later art the sun bird, usually called the phoenix in the West, is associated with the direction south. Known in China as the fêng, the phoenix became the emblem of the empress and decorated the headdresses of the Chinese household goddesses. In Shang times birds were a favorite motif on bronzes and, being unquestionably symbolical, were portrayed in the hope of achieving magical results.

The third motif on the Cincinnati kuang is the dragon, which appears in various forms throughout the pattern. Appearing on practically all of these ancient bronzes, this seemingly imaginary beast may well represent a subconscious memory of the giant flying lizards in the age of reptiles. Remains of these were found in Sinkiang only a few years ago. In China the dragon is an auspicious animal still worshiped today and associated with the sky, thunder, clouds, rain, and fertility. He is also associated with the royal ancestors. According to legend, two of the early emperors were sons of dragons and the legendary emperor Yao is said to have been born of the union of a dragon and a woman. The altar of the ancestors, in the imperial palace, was located on the east side, the direction symbolized by the dragon. In later times, the dragon became associated with the emperor, whose throne was called the "dragon throne."

Although designs on these vessels commonly represent animals, the animals are seldom portrayed naturalistically. Rather of a magical nature, they are often composite in character or completely fantastic. The common domestic animals used for sacrifice—pigs, cows, and sheep—were not represented; nor were dogs. Even the horse, which played such a prominent role in Shang civilization, was seldom portrayed in Shang art. Plants were never shown in the decorative designs. On the rare occasions when human figures were used, deities were no doubt intended rather than ordinary men.

A vessel on the functional order of the kuang, but shaped quite differently, is the bronze in the form of a naturalistic water buffalo in the Fogg Museum (Plate 4). Even though the entire vessel forms a single, realistic animal figure, the spiral thunder symbols on the horns and the handle shaped like a phallic-horned dragon indicate something more than an ordinary beast of burden. The lunar symbolism in the single crescent formed by the two horns further denotes the magical nature of this representation. Shapes so simple and plastic with minimum decoration are extremely rare among Shang bronzes.

Among vessels used for wine offerings, the most beautiful is the ku. These tall, slender goblets have hollow bases, cylindrical middle sections, and upper sections which flare into wide, trumpetlike mouths. The ku in the Doris Duke collection in New York is an excellent example (Plate 5). Miniature dragons and t'ao t'ieh masks comprising fangs, eyes, eyebrows, and ears appear in low relief on both the base and central sections. All design is executed in very flat relief, entirely subordinate to the goblet itself. Being a vessel of great elegance, the ku became a model for flower vases in later times.

The tsun is closely related to the ku. Broader and heavier, it is otherwise similar in both design and purpose. The Earl Morse collection in New York contains a tsun notable for its beautiful green patina (Plate 14). The tiger mask is the main motif. Between the two tiger masks, on both sides of the tsun, are two dragon figures. Executed in bold relief, these figures appear against a low relief background of repeated squared spirals, the thunder pattern called lei wen. The base and upper sections are plain, contrasting strongly with the animated design of the central section.

The yu is a covered, pot-shaped wine container with a rather bucketlike appearance. The yu in the Morse collection (Plate 6) has a ram's-head motif. The ends of the handle terminate in rams' heads, which also appear in relief on the decorated rim band along with stylized dragons. The precise import of the ram symbol is not known.

The chia and chüeh are vessels designed for heating wine. They stood over the fire on their three pointed legs. A typical chia (Plate 7), also in the Morse collection, has a decorative band similar to that on the Morse yu but with t'ao t'ieh and abstract bird designs. The handle is decorated with a water-buffalo head with protruding eyes and flattened, crescent-shaped horns. The two capped uprights standing just inside the rim, a characteristic feature, were probably used to lift the heated vessel from the fire.

The chüeh is smaller and more graceful than the chia. On one side the rim extends into a pointed beak. The other is formed into a spoutlike lip. Otherwise the chüeh is similar to the chia.

In addition to the foregoing liquid-offering vessels, others were designed to contain the various food offerings. The hsien, designed for steaming food; the li, a tripod form; and the ting were all ancient and ubiquitous forms whose prototypes are found among prehistoric ceramics.

The most impressive food-offering container, however, is the fang-i, a rectangular box-shaped container equipped with a base piece and a cover shaped like a roof with a four-way pitch. The fang-i in the Winthrop collection at the Fogg Museum is a splendid example (Plate 8). The chief decorative motif is the tiger mask, very forcefully rendered in bold relief on each side of the vessel and, inverted for viewing from above, on each slope of the cover. On the vessel sides, above the masks, two stylized dragons face each other. On the sides of the base piece, two stylized birds face away from each other. Stylized dragon forms are also blended into the tiger masks. The knob at the top of the cover repeats the shape of the cover and resembles the roof of a shrine. It may well represent a miniature ancestral temple. Carl Hentze, the foremost authority on the symbolism of these ancient bronzes, believes that all aspects of the fang-i form represent the ancestral temple with its typical roof, projecting beam tips, and supporting base. This hypothesis seems quite supportable by the evidence. Quite probably the very shape of some vessels, in addition to their symbolic decoration, embodied religious meanings connected with specific cults. Certainly these bronzes, cast in dimensions as great as fifty-one inches, were major cult objects serving the rituals both in veneration of the spirits of the ancestors and in propitiation of the forces of nature upon which the very survival of these agricultural people depended.

Jade, called yii in China, ranked next in importance to bronze as a medium for the Shang artisans. However, while bronzeworking was an innovation by the Shang culture, the use of jade continued traditions stemming from prehistoric times. A stone of great hardness and of even texture, jade lends itself especially to the demands of carving on a miniature scale. While universally valued for its color and texture, jade is not only aesthetically prized in China but also venerated as an auspicious substance.

Among the many jade shapes used in sacred rites, the most important are probably the ts'ung, a square tube which has a round perforation running through it, and the disc-shaped with a hole in its center. According to tradition, they represent Earth and Heaven and are often found in ancient Chinese graves. The pi, a good example of which may be found in the Singer collection in Summit, New Jersey (Plate 9), resembles the ancient pictograph for the sun, and may have been a solar disc before becoming associated with the deity Heaven. The ts'ung is believed to represent the deity Earth and may have been derived from the cover for the ancestral tablet, as Dr. Karlgren has suggested. The two shapes together certainly stand for the yang and the yin, the male forces associated with light, sun, and heaven, and the female associated with darkness and earth— the "above and below" which are mentioned in Shang inscriptions.

Shang jades also include other ceremonial objects; insignia of rank; weapons such as daggers, knives, spears, and arrowheads; utilitarian objects such as axes and hoes; and animal and human figures. Actual usage of these weapons and tools seems most unlikely, considering the time and effort required to produce such exquisite carving in a medium both precious and difficult to work. The Shang craftsmen had only primitive tools with which to deal with a medium that challenges even modern carvers. Also, the same variety in color appears in both objects of the utilitarian type and in objects of ritual art. Ranging from pure white to near black, colors include yellow, brown, gr jen, and shades in between tending toward blue and red. The unique appeal of Shang jades lies in a combination of simple beauty of shape and subtle variation in color.

The animal figures from Shang times include sensitive portrayals of the familiar symbolical creatures: tigers, dragons, birds, water buffaloes, bulls, bears, snakes, fish, cicadas and other insects, and the t'ao t'ieh.

The human figures are distinctly Mongoloid, having broad noses and narrow eyes. We do not know just whom they represent nor do we know what their functions were. The late Alfred Salmony, the foremost Western authority on ancient Chinese jades, did not believe that these Shang figures represented gods or demons because of the absence of supernatural features. However, since no other element of Shang art seems other than magical in character, these most likely represent either the supreme ancestors or nature deities such as the great god Shang Ti, who presided over the Shang pantheon. Naturalistic representations of specific historical personages seem to have come only later in Han times.

Shang carvers worked also with bone, ivory, and turquoise. The spatula in the Singer collection (Plate 10) is a typical bone artifact. The carving at the spatulate end represents a dragon. The obverted D shapes repeated along the body, although dissimilar to the vulviform cowry symbols painted on the vessel in Plate i, are probably another abstract form of these symbols of prosperity. At the handle end, the carving in its entirety represents the adult, winged cicada. Taken by itself, the forward section of this cicada figure may represent the pupal stage. Since the shrill cries of the cicada are heard at the height of the growing season for some crops and in the season of some summer harvests, its frequent incidence in ancient Chinese art probably stems from association with fertility and abundance. Cicadas carved in jade are frequently found in graves of the Han period. Since the cicada hatches above ground, spends a long period underground, and finally emerges as if in rebirth, these burial tokens were probably intended to induce resurrection by sympathetic magic.

Ivory, rarer and more precious than bone, was infrequently available to Shang carvers. The rare pieces were apparently prized highly, since Shang ivories are most intricately carved and often inlaid with turquoise.

Turquoise was widely used by the Shang artisans for inlay work, even with bronze. The turquoise-inlaid bronze object in the Fogg Museum (Plate n) was an article of harness used to adjust the direction of pull on the reins. The reins passed beneath the belled hooks on either side just as they are passed through rings in ordinary modern harness.

Ceramics continued to be the most widely followed craft, but no longer played the dominant role aesthetically. The most notable Shang ceramic ware is a hard, white stoneware in almost pure kaolin. The Freer Gallery, in Washington, D.C., possesses a superb specimen from the site of old Anyang. While no other whole vessel of this type has been recovered, shards have been found at widely distributed sites. This vase, decorated with symbolic designs such as those found on bronze ritual vessels, was probably used for ritual purposes. Another notable ceramic type discovered at Shang sites is one having a natural ash glaze.

The great bulk of ceramics from Shang sites, however, is an ordinary grey ware of the type common in prehistoric times. A wide distribution of shards in quantity suggests usage in the daily affairs of common people, as does the high incidence of accompanying wooden artifacts. Of the great variety of grey-ware shapes, most derive from traditional forms from the prehistoric period. Lack of originality and aesthetic quality suggests that, for the Shang people, ceramics were more of a utilitarian than an art form. The decorative designs are plain and not especially symbolic, usually impressed or incised into the surface of the clay. A rare, extremely interesting piece of Shang grey ware is in the Ralph Chait collection in New York (Plate 12). This li tripod, instead of conventional legs, has three mammiform lobes tipped with prominent mammillae.

In these again, the magical character of Shang art is evident. Breast and nipple shapes, most overt symbols of fecundity and abundance, are similarly found in ritual bronzes. The marked contrast between the incurving waist, the open arch of the handles, and the swelling forms of the supporting lobes renders this vessel interesting also from the formal point of view.

Painting, sculpture, and architecture, major art forms of later times, held a lesser position in the Shang culture. Michael Sullivan, in his Introduction to Chinese Art, is probably correct when he says that, in the house of an Anyang nobleman, ". . . we would have seen t'ao t'ieh and beaked dragons, cicadas and tigers, painted on the beams of his house and applied to hangings of leather and matting about his rooms, and, very probably, woven into his silk robes," but this is hardly the type of painting which would qualify as a dominant art form. Paul Pelliot reported traces of painted designs seen on Anyang woodwork which resembled designs on ritual bronzes. Only the most scanty remains of Shang painting have been discovered.

Few sculptures, either, have survived from the Shang period. Marble carvings have been found at Anyang and other sites. While some of these represent human forms, most are animal figures of the usimi symbolic types. The small bear in the Singer collection (Plate 13) comprises only basic forms rather than realistic detail. Like much primitive sculpture and some of the most modern, emphasis is upon abstract, geometric shapes and planes rather than upon modeling in the round. The result is strong and aesthetically pleasing but seems lacking in technical skill when compared to bronzes and jades of the period.

The little that is known about Shang architecture comes from inspection of tombs and building foundations. Although these provide some data on methods of construction, much remains speculative. Since stone remains are generally limited to base pieces for pillars, the chief building material must have been wood. Again, since neither brick nor tile was yet known, packed earth was probably used in the walls and straw thatch in the roofs. Judging from imitative bronze forms, roofs were gabled or hipped. We have fragmentary evidence of painted woodwork and of woodwork carved and decorated with inlay. But the largest foundations excavated at the Shang capitals measure about ninety feet on a side, and therefore the palaces and temples, compared with those of contemporary Egypt and Asia Minor, could hardly have been impressive. However, since the rural people surely lived in primitive huts and in caves, as many Chinese do to this day, the higher forms of Shang architecture would have been locally impressive.

While their prehistoric predecessors had lived in nothing larger than villages, the Shang period knew large cities with populations in the thousands and with special districts for the aristocracy, priests, and the various craft guilds such as metalworkers, potters, wood carvers, and stonemasons. The walled inner part of Ao, the first Shang capital, included 3.2 square kilometers (about 1.23 square miles). The built-up area of the later capital at Anyang comprised some 15 square kilometers (about 5.79 square miles). The Shang royal palace stood in the center of the city facing south, since the ruler was likened to the North Star. With the exception of Egypt and Mesopotamia, the Chinese civilization of this time was the most advanced in the world, and even its fragmentary remains are a living testimony to the great culture which the Shang people had evolved.