Abstract
This section examines the basic features of the painted pottery and bronze art in terms of aesthetic awareness of the beauty in the tangible objects unearthed. With reference to the painted pottery, the expressive and significant form is substantiated in realistic images, human feelings, geometric patterns, and pragmatic wisdom. Moreover, when contemplating the objects in association with the excavated sites, we tend to experience an enhanced awareness of historical space–time and a corresponding sense of vicissitudes of human struggle for existence. The different and enigmatic patterns engraved on the bronze vessels are conducive to ferocious, grotesque, and symbolic beauty. The developmental stages produced a variety of bronze works characterized with distinctive values.
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Notes
- 1.
Herbert Read, The Meaning of Art (London: Penguin Books, 1st ed. 1931, rep. 1961), p. 22.
- 2.
Clive Bell, Art (Kindle edition, 2012), p. 6.
- 3.
Clive Bell, Art (Kindle edition, 2012), p. 8.
- 4.
Curt John Ducasse, The Philosophy of Art (Norwood, MA: The Dial Press, 1929), Appendix: “The Significant Form,” pp. 308–309.
- 5.
Li Zehou, The Path of Beauty: A Study of Chinese Aesthetics (trans. Gong Lizeng, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), p. 21.
- 6.
Johan Gunnar Andersson, An Early Chinese Culture, 1923; Children of the Yellow Earth: Studies in Prehistoric China, 1934.
- 7.
A number of citations are available in Li Zehou, The Path of Beauty: A Study of Chinese Aesthetics, pp. 17–19.
- 8.
Li Zehou, The Path of Beauty: A Study of Chinese Aesthetics, pp. 12–13.
- 9.
Li Zehou, The Path of Beauty: A Study of Chinese Aesthetics, p. 29.
- 10.
Li Zehou, The Path of Beauty: A Study of Chinese Aesthetics, p. 31. Li coins a new concept of ferocious beauty known in Chinese as ning li mei (狞厉美).
- 11.
Li Zehou, The Path of Beauty: A Study of Chinese Aesthetics, p. 30.
- 12.
Sanxingdui Museum, Guanhan city, Sichuan province of China. It is roughly 50 km from Chengdu, the capital city of Sichuan. Now there is a newly constructed railway station connecting itself with the network of the fast speed train lines across China.
- 13.
Sanxingdui Museum, Guanhan city, Sichuan province, China.
- 14.
Sanxingdui Museum, Guanhan city, Sichuan province, China.
- 15.
The Round Cauldron with Sculptured Ox Head (牛首纹铜鼎) is a large bronze vessel in early Western Zhou Dynasty, collected and displayed in Shanghai Museum.
- 16.
The Square Cauldron with Sculptured Beast Face (兽面纹铜方鼎) is a large bronze vessel in Western Zhou Dynasty, collected and displayed in Luoyang Museum, Henan provinve.
- 17.
The square bronze vessel of Hou mu wu (后母戊大方鼎) is collected and displayed in China National Museum, Beijing.
- 18.
The Bronze Statue of A Man (青铜大立人) is collected and displayed in Sanxingdui Museum, Guanghan of Sichuan province.
- 19.
The Bronze Sacred Tree (青铜神树) is collected and displayed in Sanxingdui Museum, Guanghan of Sichuan province.
- 20.
Zhuangzi, Ren jian shi [In the Human World], in the Zhuangzi [The Works of Zhuangzi] (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 2015). The translation is mine, and slightly modified according to the original text. Also see “In the World of Men,” in The Complete Works of Chuangzi (trans. Burton Watson, New York: Columbia University Press, 2013), pp. 99–100.
- 21.
Ibid., p. 100.
- 22.
Guo Moruo, Qing tong shi dai [The Bronze Age] (Chongqing: Wenzhi Chubanshe, 1945).
- 23.
Its Chinese name is Bo Ju Li (伯矩鬲).
- 24.
Its Chinese name is Bo Duo Fu Xu (伯多父盨).
- 25.
Li Zehou, The Path of Beauty: A Study of Chinese Aesthetics, p. 41.
- 26.
Guo Moruo, Qing tong shi dai [The Bronze Age], cited from Li Zehou, The Path of Beauty: A Study of Chinese Aesthetics, p. 41.
- 27.
It is named “Zeng Houyyi chime-bells” (曾侯乙编钟), and displayed at Hubei Province Museum, China. After years of experimentation, noe more than five sets are replicated and practically used for music-dance performance in several cities across China today.
- 28.
This bronze sculpture is collected and displayed at Gansu Museum in Lanzhou city, Northwest of China.
- 29.
Its named Ma ta fei yan (马踏飞燕) in Chinese.
- 30.
It is called Ma ta zhu que (马踏朱雀) in Chinese.
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Wang, K. (2021). The Pottery and Bronze Art. In: Beauty and Human Existence in Chinese Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-1714-0_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-1714-0_2
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