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The majority of surviving Chinese ancient bronze artefacts are ritual forms rather than their equivalents made for practical use, either as tools or weapons. Weapons like daggers and axes had a sacrificial meaning, symbolizing the heavenly power of the ruler.
Apr 1, 2024 · Ancient Chinese Bronzes in Ritual and Society: A Brief Introduction | Chinese Works of Art | Sotheby’s. By Marian Ang | Apr 1, 2024. Bronze has played a significant role in Chinese culture for over three millennia. Ahead of Ritual and Reality, Marian Ang explores the role ancient bronze vessels played in rituals and everyday life.
- Marian Ang
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v. t. e. Chinese bronze inscriptions, also commonly referred to as bronze script or bronzeware script, are writing in a variety of Chinese scripts on ritual bronzes such as zhōng bells and dǐng tripodal cauldrons from the Shang dynasty (2nd millennium BC) to the Zhou dynasty (11th–3rd century BC) and even later.
- 金文
- 钟鼎文
- Bronze writing
- 鐘鼎文
The era of the Shang and the Zhou dynasties is generally known as the Bronze Age of China, because bronze, an alloy of copper and tin, used to fashion weapons, parts of chariots, and ritual vessels, played an important role in the material culture of the time.
The Chinese have been collecting and studying ancient Chinese ritual bronzes since the eleventh century, and much of the vocabulary that scholars and collectors developed is still in use today. Each shape has a name. For example, ding means “cauldron,” fangding is “square cauldron,” and liding means “lobed cauldron.”.
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.
Artwork (7) Exploring the ritual significance of ancient Chinese bronzes, this exhibition sheds new light on innovations of form and ornamentation, and the advanced techniques of casting of these stunning objects dating from the Shang to the Han Dynasties (1600 BCE to 220 CE).
