The Zhou dynasty (1046–256 bce)

The ritual bronzes of the early Western Zhou (Xizhou) continued the late Anyang tradition; many were made by the same craftsmen and by their descendants. Even in the predynastic Zhou period, however, new creatures had appeared on the bronzes, notably a flamboyant long-tailed bird that may have had totemic meaning for the Zhou rulers, and flanges had begun to be large and spiky. By the end of the 9th century, moreover, certain Shang shapes such as the jue, gu, and gong were no longer being made, and the taotie and other Shang zoomorphs had been broken up and then dissolved into volutes or undulating meander patterns encircling the entire vessel, scales, and fluting, with little apparent symbolic intent.

From the outset of Zhou rule, vessels increasingly came to serve as vehicles for inscriptions that were cast to record events and report them to ancestral spirits. An outstanding example, excavated near Xi’an in 1976, was dedicated by a Zhou official who apparently had divined the date for the successful assault upon the Shang and later used his reward money to have the bronze vessel cast. By late Zhou times a long inscription might have well over 400 characters.

Vessel shapes, meanwhile, had become aggressive or heavy and sagging, and the quality of the casting was seldom as high as in the late Shang. These changes, completed by the 8th century bce, mark the middle Zhou phase of bronze design.

The bronzes of the Eastern Zhou (Dongzhou) period, after 771 bce, show signs of a gradual renaissance in the craft and much regional variation, which appears ever more complex as more Eastern Zhou sites are unearthed. Often adorned with boldly modeled handles in the form of animal heads, 8th- and 7th-century bronzes are crude and vigorous in shape. Typical vessels of this phase have been found in a cemetery of the small feudal state of Guo in Henan province. Vessels from Xinzheng in Henan (8th–6th century bce) reveal a further change to more elegant forms, often decorated with an allover pattern of tightly interlaced serpents; the vessel may be set about with tigers and dragons modeled in the round and topped with a flaring, petaled lid. The aesthetic tendency toward elaboration was given further stimulus by the introduction of the lost-wax method of production (by the late 7th century bce), leading quickly to zealous experiments in openwork design that are impressive technically though often heavy in appearance and gaudy in effect. The style of bronzes found at Liyu in Shanxi (c. 6th–5th century bce) is much simpler, more compact, and unified; the interlaced and spiral decoration is flush with the surface. Thereafter, until the end of the dynasty, the bronze style became increasingly refined: the decoration was confined within a simpler contour, and the interlacing of the Xinzheng style gave way to the fine, hooked “comma pattern” of the vessels of the 5th and 4th centuries bce. By this time, bronze decor had come under the influence of textile patterns and technique, particularly embroidery, as well as of lacquer decor, suggesting the bronze medium’s decline from primacy. Bronzes decorated in this manner have been found chiefly in the Huai River valley.

Bronze bells are another form from this period. Perhaps the oldest class is a small clappered bell called ling, but the best known is certainly the zhong, a suspended, clapperless bell. Zhong were cast in sets of eight or more to form a musical scale, and they were probably played in the company of string and wind instruments. The section is a flattened ellipse, and on each side of the body appear 18 blunt spikes, or basses, arranged in three double rows of three. These often show marks of filing, and it has been suggested that they were devices whereby the bell could be tuned to the requisite pitch by removing small quantities of the metal. The oldest specimen recovered in a closed excavation is one from Pudu Cun, dating from the 9th century bce. A fine example is an orchestral set of 64 bells, probably produced in Chu and unearthed in 1978 from a royal tomb of the Zeng state, at Leigudun near Sui Xian in Hubei province. The bells were mounted on wooden racks supported by bronze human figurines. They are graded in size (from about 20 to 150 cm [8 to 60 inches] in height) and tone (covering five octaves), and each is capable of producing two unrelated tones according to where it is struck. Gold-inlaid inscriptions on each bell present valuable information regarding early musical terms and performance, while a 65th bell is dedicated by inscription from the king of Chu to Marquis Yi of Zeng (Zenghou Yi), the deceased, and bears a date equivalent to 433 bce.

In vessels from the rich finds at Jincun near Luoyang, all excrescences are shorn away; the shapes have a classic purity and restraint, and the decoration consists of geometric patterns of diagonal bands and volutes. The taste of the new leisured class is shown in objects that were not merely useful but finely fashioned and beautiful in themselves: ritual and domestic vessels, weapons, chariot and furniture fittings, ceremonial staff ends, bracelets, and the backs of mirrors. Monster masks attaching ring handles are reminiscent of the Shang taotie, the first sign of a deliberate archaism that would from time to time throughout history give a special flavour to Chinese decorative art.

The wealth and sophistication of late Zhou culture is apparent in examples of exquisite craftsmanship, while the culture’s increasing commercial interaction and artistic fascination with the tribal peoples to their north is apparent in new techniques, such as cast openwork, and many of the works executed with inlays of gold, silver, jade, glass, and semiprecious stones. Bronze garment hooks worn at the shoulder were often fashioned in the form of animals, reflecting the artistic style of China’s nomadic neighbours, who through the Eastern Zhou and Han dynasties exerted pressure on its northern frontiers and who both influenced and were influenced by Chinese culture in this period. Scattered finds, chiefly in the Ordos (Mu Us) Desert, show that the arts of these huntsmen and herdsmen were related to those of the steppe peoples of Central Asia and, remotely, to those of the Luristan (Lorestān) region of Persia. Bronze objects consist chiefly of animal-headed daggers and knives; cheekpieces, jingles, and other harness fittings; ornaments; and plaques of pierced relief work generally depicting with somewhat barbarous vigour an animal combat, a theme remote from the experience of the settled farming communities of northern China.

Bronze mirrors were used in ancient China not only for toiletry but also as funerary objects, in accordance with the belief that a mirror was itself a source of light and could illuminate the eternal darkness of the tomb. A mirror also was thought of as a symbolic aid to self-knowledge. Ancient Chinese mirrors were generally bronze disks polished on the face and decorated on the back, with a central loop handle or pierced boss to hold a tassel. The early ones were small and worn at the girdle; later they became larger and were often set on a stand. A bronze disk found in a tomb at Anyang may have been a mirror. There is less doubt about the small disks from an 8th-century-bce tomb at Shangcunling in Henan province, believed to be the earliest mirrors yet found in China. Mirrors, however, were not widely used until the 4th and 3rd centuries bce. Shouzhou, in the state of Chu, was a centre for the manufacture of late Zhou mirrors, the designs on which consist chiefly of zigzag lozenges, quatrefoil petals, scallops, a hooked symbol resembling the character for “mountain” (shan), and sometimes animal figures superimposed on a dense allover pattern of hooks and volutes. These mirrors are often thin, and the execution is refined and elegant. Mirrors from Henan (Luoyang) city are closer in style to the inlaid bronzes. The decoration, often dragons and intricately interwoven zoomorphs whose tails turn into volutes, stands out boldly against a fine geometric background that suggests a textile pattern.

The Qin (221–206 bce) and Han dynasties (206 bce–220 ce)

Already by late Zhou times, the more expensive medium of lacquer was often used in place of bronze. Nevertheless, some bronze vessels were still made for sacrificial rites, and other bronze objects, such as lamps and incense burners, also were made for household use. The “hill censer” (boshan xianglu) was designed as a miniature, three-dimensional mountain of the immortals, usually replete with scenes of mythic combat between man and beasts, suggesting the powerful forces of nature that only the Daoist adept could tame. Sacred vapours emanating from materials burned within were released through perforations in the lid (hidden behind the mountain peaks). Cosmic waters were depicted lapping at the base of the hills, conveying the sense of an island, and the whole was set on a narrow stem that thrust the mountain upward as if it were an axis of the universe. Such censers might have been used in ceremonial exorcisms, in funerary rites associated with the ascent of the soul, or in other varieties of Daoist religious practice.

Some Han mirrors have astronomical or astrological patterns. The most elaborate, particularly popular during the Xin dynasty (9–25 ce), bears the so-called TLV pattern. (The TLV pattern is so called because it resembles those roman letters.) These angular shapes, ranged around the main band of decoration between a central square zone and the outer border band, are believed to be linked to a cosmological, chesslike game called liubo; the decoration also may include creatures symbolic of the four directions, immortals, and other mythical beings popular in Daoist folklore. Often the mirrors carry inscriptions, varying from a simple expression of good luck to a long dedication giving the name of the maker and referring to the Shangfang, the imperial office in charge of imperial workshops. In the Eastern Han the Daoist elements dominated mirror design, which often includes the legendary Queen Mother of the West, Xiwangmu, and her royal eastern counterpart, Dongwanggong. The coming of Buddhism at the end of the Han dynasty caused a decline in the use of cosmological mirrors. Mirror making, however, was revived in the Tang dynasty (618–907).