Opening September 9 and on view through December 14, Mount Holyoke College Art Museum will present “Ancient Bronzes of the Asian Grasslands,” an exhibition that introduces modern viewers to the vibrant world of the eastern steppes through small, personal objects.
With its geographic and historical remoteness, the nomadic population that produced these elegant artworks is a mysterious subject for historians and art historians alike.
Nomadic populations flourished across the wide expanse of grassy plains in central Asia, interacting with an environment characterized by extreme climate and majestic terrain.
By the mid-first millennium BCE, some of the steppe dwellers had become seasonally migrating herders of sheep, goat and cattle, and they adapted to a mobile lifestyle among the elements.
As the Silk Road began to snake its way from Rome to the East in the first century BCE, these expert horsemen and breeders introduced the horse to China as an item of prestige and nobility, and participated fully in the exchange of goods between East and West. They functioned as intermediaries between empires. The selected pieces that comprise “Ancient Bronzes of the Asian Grasslands” represent in material form the fusion of the utilitarian and the spiritual culture of the steppe dwellers.
As in daily life, animals are integral motifs in the meticulous bronze ornaments, belt buckles, pendants and weapons. Animals represented not only the primary form of livelihood for the steppe dwellers, but also reflected their shamanistic beliefs in animals as spirit guides and tribal totems. These portable possessions, crafted from bronze for lightness and strength, were most often worn as personal decoration.
They also function as a manifestation of the steppe dwellers’ culture, allowing one today to piece together visual clues that may help to fashion a more complete picture of this enigmatic civilization. The only surviving written records of this sophisticated and skilled people are accounts written by nonnative visitors.
The bronzes assembled in this exhibition represent a portion of the extensive Arthur M. Sackler collection. Sackler was a research psychiatrist, medical publisher and a passionate connoisseur of Asian art committed to making his collection public and accessible to all.
The Mount Holyoke College Art Museum is on Lower Lake Road. For more information, www.mtholyoke.edu/go/artmuseum or 413-538-3185.
