ENDURING ART OF JADE AGE CHINA, Volume II
An illustrated catalogue and introduction written by Dr. Elizabeth Childs-Johnson, With articles by Chinese archaeologists Shao Wangping, Lu Jianfang, Hang Tao and Jiang Song and scientists Dr. Frank Preusser and Frank Aon
Throckmorton Fine Art is pleased to present a sequel exhibit and catalog "Enduring Art of Jade Age China Volume II" that incorporates new and important material on the art that catalyzed Chinese civilization. Fifty works created out of nephrite have been selected to represent the “Jade Age” of China (ca. 4000-2000 BCE) and its historic successors (Xia to Han periods, ca. 2000 BCE-200 CE).
To the early Chinese, jade was not a radiant material like bronze but rather a material that had depth and translucency like porcelain. True jade nephrite is visceral and powerful, full of the life breath the early Chinese believed animated stone, mountains, human beings, and the world. It is a special material, which despite its obduracy was miraculously fashioned into works of art burnished to an unctuous sheen.
As a potent symbol of military and ritual power, jade during China’s proto-historic period belonged to the ruling elite. Jade pendants decorated a chieftain shaman’s headdress, robe and body, and cosmically significant jade shapes were fashioned for ritual use and display of wealth. Jade was the first material used to make ritual implements, thus the well-known term li or “ritual” in later Confucian tradition derives its meaning from one of its components, the graph for jade.
Exhibition highlights include large raw jade shapes from the Qijia culture of northwest China that were collected and mounted 4,000 years later by Qing emperors. Various finials and plaques featuring metamorphic portraits of shamans as semi-humans or in costumes of owls and tigers derive from the historic Shang period. Other Shang and Western Zhou jade pendants feature auspicious animal symbols ranging from fish to alligators. Jade face masks decorating corpses from the Western Zhou period are also represented. Jade plaques in the form of long dragons, feng mythical birds, tigers, Eurasian yaks, and intertwined snakes once formed parts of elaborate pectorals, girdle ornaments, or belts decorating the body of the aristocratic elite. The broad repertoire of subject matter is further expressed in the sculptures of an eagle, flying deer, serpentine feline, lion with tortoise shell, apotropaic bi-xie, and figural subjects of various female and male attendants from later Warring States and Han periods of circa 5th c. BCE through 2nd c. CE.
|
