Page 38 - Studio International - October1973

nervous temperament and the speed of the had removed most of the contents of the tomb, many figurines, and makes a glorious show of
beasts. One which has become famous is the but enough remained to give an account of the the most characteristic T'ang pottery. The
`Flying Horse', which balances by a rear hoof art as it stood at the turn of the century. Already application of glaze in several colours (brown,
on the head of a swallow. The bird turns back the style of figurines has reached the best T'ang yellow, green, blue), particularly the very free
its head in surprise, as if the hoof had grazed it standard. One does not cease to wonder at the use of it, with effects of splash and casual brush
as the horse flew past. The allusion is to an skill which so effortlessly catches physical painting, appears to vanish along with the
emperor's courser called Flying Swallow, and, and psychological reality, even in works which superior style of figurines, in the cataclysm
perhaps simultaneously, to an empress whose were often multiplied from moulds. But in the of the An Lu-shan rebellion, which broke out in
skill in the dance earned her the same name. case of Yung T'ai some figures look more like 756. Examples of the pottery were in Yung
A third social group characteristic of the Han original sculptures or were retouched in detail T'ai's tomb, and from a small tomb at
period is represented by the kings and after modelling (like the figures made today in Ch'ung-p'u, near the capital Ch'ang-an (Sian)
noblemen of Tien, a small kingdom in China). The menials who are portrayed appear comes a magnificent camel and horse, two
Yunnan whose necropolis was excavated caught in typical action: the huntsman raises plausibly vacuous court ladies, and two
between 1955 and 196o. In the tombs were his whip with vigour, another flexes his grave-guardians which are among the best of
products of metropolitan China, especially muscles to amuse his companions, another is their kind to have survived. Of these the one
lacquered wood, alongside pieces representing dealing with an obstreperous hunting leopard called Ch'i-t'ou is given a horn, large ears,
an independent local art of a significantly which clings to the crupper of his horse. flaming shoulders and a repellent face :
different stamp. The Tienians delighted in In sculpture, as in some other branches of according to a Han text, his business is to keep
representing in bronze ceremonial and festive art, the seventh century is curiously obscure. the dead from wandering.
scenes of the village life, with an eye for genre Some pottery figures belonging to the Sui period It appears from some recent finds of silver
types and dramatic incident, which produced (AD 581-617) which figure in the exhibition are that there is more to learn on the vexed question
work surpassing anything of the kind to be
found among the Chinese at this time; and they
excelled above all in animal sculpture, where
the realism is wholly free of the stylization
inseparable from Chinese treatment of organic
form.
Such naivety of vision owes nothing to
influence from the art of the Han period or the
preceding centuries, for all the historian's claim
that the kingdom of Tien owed its culture to
Chinese settlers arrived from the southern
kingdom of Ch'u. We may suppose that art no
less inventive, also escaping the formalities of
Chinese metropolitan sophistication, existed in
many outlying regions of China which were
being absorbed fully into the Han administrative
system during the second half of the second
century BC. Some pieces of realistic and primitive in comparison with the Yung T'ai of how far the Chinese silversmith copied
elaborately carved birds and deer survive in the figurines. Between 600 and 700 the Chinese Persian models. The pieces included in the
territory of Ch'u itself, and here, as in Tien, sculptor had acquired interest both in anatomy exhibition are drawn from a board excavated in
snakes were added to nearly every animal and in the possibility of psychological realism. 1970 at Ho-chia, at the site of the ancient
composition. The Tien scene of two dancers The movement is more clearly traced in life-size Ch'ang-an, and on the estate of a Prince of Pin.
treading a measure at the height of the sculpture, but even here the stages of the process A gold bowl and a silver box are decorated with
excitement is unforgettable. They too are are far from clear. At the Feng-hsi-ssu, a the floral scrolls with which we are familiar
involved with snakes, more cheerfully than rock-carved temple near Loyang constructed from previous finds, but the shape of one piece
Laocoon and his sons. for the very empress who murdered her is so close to a Persian Sasanian type that its
The theme of realism is taken up again in grand-daughter, figures of guardians in armour Chinese origin might at first sight be doubted.
finds of the T'ang period (AD 618-906). In and of disciples of the Buddha show an The sides are eight-faceted, and on each facet
the past a vast number of pottery figurines and a experiment in heroic realism only partially is the high-relief figure of a Central Asian
fair quantity of silver have left China, the yield successful, as if the sculptors did not fully holding a cup or a musical instrument, and
of illicit excavations in south Shensi. What is apprehend the style of the model which was above the handle an escutcheon with the heads
recorded from recent excavations adds less to presumably submitted to them. In the best of two men, evidently a reminiscence of the
our knowledge of the quality and variety of Yung T'ai figurines the style is mastered, but royal or noble head which appears at this place
these arts than to information on their duration even here there are enough examples of servants on a Persian cup. But the make is nevertheless
and their social context. In 1964 and 1972 the standing dumb and stiff in the old manner to Chinese, and its gilding something unknown to
Chinese authorities for the first time decided on suggest that the more realistic figurines belong Persian silver. By this token it follows that two
the opening of two tombs which promised to be to the first product in the new style. If this is so silver cups found near Ta-t'ung in Shansi are
well furnished, as belonging to members of the we must date the whole period of the realistic also of Chinese workmanship, although in their
T'ang ruling house. The first, expected to be figurines between 70o and the 75os. It is likely case (a boy in a grape-vine, and high-relief
that of Li Hsien, the Crown Prince who died in that in the case of the figurines as much as in figures of women in 'Hellenistic' style) the
694, proved instead to be that of the unfortunate monumental temple sculpture, the stimulus ornament is even more exotically western.
princess Yung T'ai, who was executed by her towards the new style reached China from The exhibition ends with the Yuan (Mongol)
usurping grandmother the empress Wu, and was abroad, in the wake of a fresh influx of Buddhist period, an inevitable limit in a review of
reburied with suitable pomp in 706 when her doctrine, or as part and parcel of its iconography. excavated material. Inevitably too the Sung
father regained control. The same evidence is relevant to the history and Yuan periods are mainly represented by
An ancient robbery, probably of T'ang date, of the polychrome lead glaze which is used on porcelains. Some pieces have been included to