“The Shape of Things,” currently on view at the Asia Society, does more to bring the great civilizations of the East into context than its title implies, anchoring the concept that form followed function during the Neolithic age. In presenting more than 90 items from the Mr and Mrs John D. Rockefeller 3rd collection of Asian art, the exhibition surveys the progression of Oriental design from the Neolithic and bronze eras through to the Twentieth Century.
The exhibition underscores the clarity of the Rockefellers’ vision to systematically build a collection that would help foster solid understanding of the East. Aided by Sherman Lee, then director of the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Rockefellers began acquiring in 1956. They bought not only the best money could buy, but they did it judiciously, creating a comprehensive body of art and artifacts that critics over the years have hailed as “gemlike.”
When John Rockefeller died in 1978, the gift of the collection to Asia House became the primary impetus for the building of the Asian Society’s Park Avenue headquarters.
Curated by Adriana Proser, John H. Foster curator of traditional Asian art, and Xiaojin Wu, Asia Society Museum fellow, “The Shape of Things,” on view through July 27, demonstrates how the form of an object reveals a wealth of information about its function and production. Proser’s broad definition of form includes materials and colorations.
Organized into three categories, “Objects for Ritual Use,” “Objects for Daily Use” and “Objects for Decoration,” the survey is open to interpretation on two levels. The first, of course, is the visual, a high-impact hit of the forms that have found their way into the consciousness of artists and collectors for generations. The other is the cultural insight shed on superpowers that, still somewhat mysterious and challenging, demand to be understood.
The histories of both China and Japan begin about 5,000 years ago in the Neolithic period. Simply put, China was to the Orient what Rome was to the West, an influencer of language and culture. Bronze and jade were the predominant media of the era, and lacquer was used. During the Bronze Age, artistic evolution tended to correspond to shifts in power, and there were many. With the coming of the Shang dynasty (1766‱211 BC), centered in the Yellow River Valley in northeastern China, kings derived their rights from divine ancestors. To honor their benefactors, they presented offerings of food in massive bronze vessels, or guis .
Guis were either buried with a clansman or placed atop altars. Typically decorated with stylized animals that experts believe served as protective spirits for the offerings, the early bronzes were quite complex. While the main body of the vessels were typically cast from a single mold, intricate handles often required the technical virtuosity of sectional castings. Highly ritualistic vessels carried the added drama of rising from pedestal bases.
Low-fired earthenware objects from Japan, which, at the time, had close ties with China, date to about 1,000 BC. They are thought to have been imbued with magical properties and associated with the safe transport of the soul. One such artifact in the exhibit is a Japanese female figure. Broad of hip and with bulging eyes, it has the properties commonly associated with fertility icons. Recent scholarship, however, has determined that it is the eyes that hold the secret of use. The hollows behind them are thought to be containers for spirits. If such is the case, the cliché “windows of the soul” is a universal theme. Interestingly, the artisan that crafted the figure embellished it with a twisted rope design, made by pressing cord into the clay.
Early in the Eleventh Century, the Chou, from northwestern China, conquered the Shang and ruled for the next 400 years, dividing China into a series of fiefdoms. During their reign, jade and bronze became the media of adornment. As rivalries between the feudal states grew, bronze vessels became the means of manifesting political authority. The zoomorphic thrust of the Shang patterns were replaced by all-over surface ornamentation. The intricate designs were made by polishing away the ground, a skilled and lengthy process that was not to be improved upon for several centuries.
When the first emperor of the Ch’in dynasty unified China, circa 221 BC, he ushered in an imperial era that lasted pretty much without interruption until the Twentieth Century. The Ch’in dynasty itself, however, lasted only 14 years before it was supplanted by the Han dynasty.
Contemporary with the Roman Empire, the Hans oversaw an era of economic and political expansion. Ancient ritual forms lost their meaning. Clerical script became the prescribed written language. Weights and measures were standardized. A uniform legal code was established. Bronze vessels were relegated to utilitarian functions, such as wine warmers, trays, ladles and cups. Ornamentation was minimal. Still, there was a prevailing interest in magical practice and immortality. The smoke that emanated from censers, magnificent incense burners, was thought to be a representation of cloud-breath, an auspicious omen. While censers were used in rites of immortality, they also perfumed the air at banquets and masked basic human odors.
As man’s importance in this world soared higher than ever before, there came the desire to remake the mortal world in the afterlife. Lifelike ceramic sculptures of horses, the real life symbols of military might, chimera and fabulous beasts, female attendants and entertainers were made to guard tombs and transport the deceased to the afterlife. When lead-based glazes made vibrant colors possible, artisans responded with sancai , a three-color palette of green, brown and white.
With the collapse of the Han dynasty, China went through the 400 years of political turmoil. Finally, unity was restored under the T’ang dynasty (618‹07 AD.) The T’angs conveyed power through monumental inscriptions cast in bronze or carved in stone. In the Eighth Century, cobalt blue began appearing. Overall, life during this era was good. The wealthy drank from objects like the silver stem cup with a repoussé lotus flower represented in the Rockefeller collection. They ate from silver gilt dishes like the lobed example with repoussé hunting scenes. For tea dregs and spit, they used items like the bulging stoneware jar with trumpet mouth and small holes.
The Song dynasty (960‱279 AD) shaped the intellectual and political climate down to the Twentieth Century. Divided into two periods, it had a capital in the north and, later, when besieged by nomads from the far north, a capital in the south. The first part of the Song dynasty saw the flowering of landscape painting, ceramics and religious arts. Potters, taking their inspiration from ancient bronze ritual vessels, silver bowls and imported trade goods, discovered the value of reusable molds. The varieties of ceramics were identified by the names of the kilns in which they were fired. Glazes of this period tend toward the monochromatic and usually have a soft sheen and translucency that differs from the glassy hardness of later porcelains.
When, in the Thirteenth Century, the Mongols marched through, China came under foreign domination for the first time in its long history. Ironically, Kublai Khan, the first Yuan emperor, could not rule without recourse to China’s well-established traditions. Under his leadership, China was reunified after a century and a half of infighting. The result was a cross-pollination of cultures.
Although scholars and teachers encountered absolutist policies and preferred a retirement of humbled circumstances to submission, artists had the freedom to explore options. They began adding inscriptions to their paintings, thus extending the meaning of pictorial images. Notable among the innovations was the popularization of cobalt as an underglaze that produced classic blue and white ceramics. While blue and white was good enough for export, the Mongol rulers favored the whiteware ceramics produced at the Jingdezhen kilns.
When a peasant named Chu-Yüan rose through the ranks of the military, the Mongols were thrown out of power. This was the beginning of the Ming dynasty. Chu-Yüan ruled under the era name Hongwu, which literally means “Vast Military.” The Ming dynasty lasted from 1368 to 1644. It was an age of proto-industrial development. While ceramic and textile manufacturing flourished, assembly line production reduced the quality of palace wares to that of finer commercial products. At one point, when trade restrictions made cobalt difficult to come by, clever potters began experimenting with an underglaze of copper.
A Ming dish with copper underglaze makes clear the difficulty inherent in controlling the color. Like the designs of most early Ming pieces, the dish features a key fret pattern (called leiwen or thunder pattern in Chinese) that was probably taken from a pattern book. Its color, though, is a lackluster pale gray, an eerie shade that is produced when copper oxide is fired.
A foliate rimmed dish, also of the period but produced during the Emperor Yongle’s reign, boasts a highly refined porcelain body of the “sweet whiteware,” (tian bai) produced in Jingdezhen. Covered in a clear glaze, its floral decorations are subtle, barely visible. The technique is called anhua , or secret. A rice bowl, also of the Ming period, Xuande era, is decorated with “The Four Gentlemanly Accomplishments” †painting, calligraphy, music and chess. The appearance of women in the design suggests a possible growth in female patronage.
Meanwhile, in Japan, the Shogunates were seeing changes, too. The decorative arts hint at the culture that was evolving. In the Sixteenth Century, tea master Furuta Oribe promoted a taste for asymmetry, imperfection and refined rusticity in the tea ceremony. A water jar from the Rockefeller collection, made in the Iga ware kilns of the Mie prefecture, shows his influence. It is brown in color, a shade produced through oxidation. Extra-long firing created rich textures on the surface.
A gourd-shaped bottle from the Edo period (1603‱868), generally regarded as the beginning of Japan’s modern era, is typical of the Imari ware being produced. The exquisite yellows, greens, dark greens and reds used had international appeal and were a favorite of European markets for the 80 years it was exported. The size and shape of the bottle indicate that it was used to serve sake.
“The Shape of Things” is a concise interpretation of Asian ceramics that is presented in rich and rewarding style. The Asia Society is at 725 Park Avenue. For information, 212-288-6400 or www.asiasociety.org .
