xiaotu的部落格

The Features of Chinese Bronze of the Warring States

In the Warring States period, China’s industry, agriculture, commerce, transportation, and other aspects were not affected by the war. The various vassal states were in the situations of mutual promotion and development, such as the Dujiang Weir, Zhengguo Canal, Honggou and other well-known water conservancy project did not only boost the development of agriculture, and bring benefit to the future generations as well. Furthermore, in terms of culture and ideology, all schools of thoughts contended for attention, bringing forth resplendent pre-Qin culture and leaving a great impact on later generations. The Chinese bronze sculptures were also produced in large numbers.

To the Warring States Period, the handicraft had made a great advancement and the level of the industries like smelting iron, Chinese bronze casting, lacquer, and silk had significantly improved. The production of bronze sculpture wielded founding, welding, lost wax and the craft of mix-inlaying gold and silver, leading to the crafts like the gold gilt and painting gold and engraving. The shapes tend to be thin and smart while the patterns meticulous and elaborate, of excellent technical and artistic level. Although due to popularity of the iron causing less and less bronze tools, still there are plentiful of Chinese bronze sculptures produced.

Overview of the Chinese bronze

Warring States period was the era that Chinese society experienced a dramatic change. The productivity had been rapidly improved and culture underwent unprecedented prosperity. At this point, the sacrificial Chinese bronze in the Shang and Zhou declined, but the daily utensils attained universal development, like the bronze statue mirror at leas was widespread in the ruling class. Ancient literature has recorded many about the ancients using bronze mirrors. For example, Strategies of the Warring States and The Songs of Chu all mention about the bronze mirror in the daily life. The big progress of the bronze mirror in the Warring States greatly relies on two points. First, the application of the iron tools in manufacturing the bronze sculptures supplies favorable conditions to the more detailed division of labor within the workshop and creation of new technology. Second, after evolution of the Shang and Zhou, the proportion of the alloy of the bronze mirror had tended to be scientific and stable, greatly increasing the practical effect. By the virtue of standardized shape and beautifully decorated ornaments, the bronze mirror of the Warring States marked that the ancient Chinese bronze mirrors have headed from youth to maturity.

The Chinese bronze sculptures during this period are characterized by various shapes and involve a lot of categories like the decorative art and handicraft, mainly including the design, calligraphy, painting, sculpture and so on. To put it in another way, they are the arts epitomize various schools of crafts. The application of patterns on the chinese bronze grew up a number of decorative techniques with regularity in the long process of practice, making full use of the contrast, symmetry, empty and solid contrary, rhythmic changes in density, the repeated use of curves and arcs as well as highlighting the sense of direction and movement and so on. The utilization of calligraphy primarily finds expression in the inscriptions on Chinese bronze sculptures. During this period, the bronze sculptures were more made by the feudal lords, so the scripts varied and the character pattern was either fat or thin. Some followed the ones in Shang and Zhou as well as the inlaying gold characters and inscriptions in the form of birds or insects. Through these inscriptions engraved in bronzes we are able to get a glimpse of the calligraphy.

The paintings in the Warring States access to us are very limited, but we can get some knowledge of the painting achievements by means of the patterns on the bronzes to some extent, which is one significant feature of the bronze dragon in the Warring States. Of which, some can be used to enjoy as painting artworks, such as the ones picturing the wars, hunting, feast, chariots, architecture in the society, simple in composition and plain in the lines as skillful as to the extent of the unity of form and spirit. Besides, animal statues and human sculptures cast by copper also turned up, which tied countless with the Chinese bronze sculptures now.
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