Day 73 - Tang mirror
July 19, 2018
This extremely long and packed-full gallery (207) covers many millennia of Chinese art, from Neolithic ceramics to Shang and Zhou bronzes to objects from the Han and Tang dynasties and beyond. I have to confess that the earlier pieces leave me cold; I admire the technical skill they reflect without much liking them. But I both admire and enjoy many of the small ornamental objects (belt clasps, harness pieces, finials, etc.) from the Han period that have very naturalistic depictions of animals. There's one in particular that seems both beautiful and odd: a gold belt clasp that shows a leopard, its spots defined by turquoise inlays, that is attacking a recumbent man. The man holds a large knife, but his mouth is open in apparent agony. Will he be able to stab the leopard before he is eaten? How would the person wearing this belt have possibly felt about the image?
I am struck by the resemblance between Egyptian and Chinese beliefs and funeral customs. Both cultures believed in an afterlife, and that the dead needed to be equipped with objects to assist in that afterlife. In the Chinese belief system, this was reinforced by the doctrine of filial piety and the responsibility of one's descendants to provide for the deceased in the world beyond. So graves contained earthenware statuettes and figurines and models. There's an amusing model of a little poultry yard with three inch-high ducks and some other smaller birds enclosed within a square pen.
Today's object is a bronze mirror, perhaps 9 inches in diameter, from the 8th or 9th century C.E. (the Tang dynasty). Within the circular band that defines the central area of the mirror is a repousse' design that shows two archers mounted on horses; they take aim at a pair of ducks that are flying above a highly stylized triangular mountain. The horse on the right gallops onward - you feel its momentum - while the archer on its back twists around to fire his arrow. The horse on the left appears, from its raised left hoof and lowered hindquarters, to have stopped momentarily so that the archer, who is facing forward, can take better aim. The scene at the bottom reprises the upper scene's theme of paired animals but is much more tranquil: One parrot feeds on the fruit of a vine, while another hovers above the vine's curving form. The outer part of the mirror is divided into eight lobes that show, alternately, flowers and birds.
What makes the mirror seem remarkable to me is not only the quality of the repousse' work, but also the ample use of blank space to make the figures stand out all the more.
I am struck by the resemblance between Egyptian and Chinese beliefs and funeral customs. Both cultures believed in an afterlife, and that the dead needed to be equipped with objects to assist in that afterlife. In the Chinese belief system, this was reinforced by the doctrine of filial piety and the responsibility of one's descendants to provide for the deceased in the world beyond. So graves contained earthenware statuettes and figurines and models. There's an amusing model of a little poultry yard with three inch-high ducks and some other smaller birds enclosed within a square pen.
Today's object is a bronze mirror, perhaps 9 inches in diameter, from the 8th or 9th century C.E. (the Tang dynasty). Within the circular band that defines the central area of the mirror is a repousse' design that shows two archers mounted on horses; they take aim at a pair of ducks that are flying above a highly stylized triangular mountain. The horse on the right gallops onward - you feel its momentum - while the archer on its back twists around to fire his arrow. The horse on the left appears, from its raised left hoof and lowered hindquarters, to have stopped momentarily so that the archer, who is facing forward, can take better aim. The scene at the bottom reprises the upper scene's theme of paired animals but is much more tranquil: One parrot feeds on the fruit of a vine, while another hovers above the vine's curving form. The outer part of the mirror is divided into eight lobes that show, alternately, flowers and birds.
What makes the mirror seem remarkable to me is not only the quality of the repousse' work, but also the ample use of blank space to make the figures stand out all the more.
later
I think this may be the first time that I've changed my thoughts about what's going on after looking again at the photograph of the image. At first my perception was that both horses were galloping forward. Now, I think that is true only of the horse on the right.
On those outer lobes, those look like stylized clouds to me, rather than flowers, no?
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