On Decorations of Chinese Bronze Sculpture Statue(1)
While some direct information about the Shang Dynasty comes from inscriptions on bronze sculpture statue of Shang-era, mostly from oracle bones — turtle shells, cattle scapulae, or other bones, which bear glyphs that form the first significant corpus of recorded Chinese characters. Anyhow, the marking of more sacred items are bore on some of the most utilitarian objects. The Chinese inscribed all kinds of bronze sculptures with three main motif types: demons, symbolic animals, and abstract symbols. Some large bronze sculptures also bear inscriptions that have helped historians and archaeologists piece together the history of China. Now let’s have brief introductions to the primary decorations on Chinese bronzes.
Taotie(饕餮纹), also a pattern of beast face. Taotie was one of the most popular motifs for the bronze statue during that time. Taotie is a Chinese mythical creature, said to have only head and no body.
Taotie on the china bronze of China usually gazes closely with giant eyes and opens the mouth widely and angrily that are the expression of a primitive force. Their cruel and vicious looks make people feel awe and frightened which is a kind of power pointing to the abyss. In such serious and mysterious atmosphere can produce a sense of awe and shock which have religious meaning of obedience.
Of this pattern, taotie eats man is a common decoration on China bronze sculpture, showing a large open-mouth taotie devouring a human head. This subject lines with the habit of taotie enjoying eating man in legend. However, Zhang Guangzhi, professor of archeology at Harvard University has discovered that it is a misunderstanding after carefully observation and research. People tend to believe that this ferocious beast is eating a human due to its mouth-stretching. He realizes that there is no further action of beast chewing and swallowing a man on the bronze statues. The human-head on the Si Mu Wu ding and Fuhao yue are placed right between two animal heads unlike the state of being swallowed.
Further speculation indicates that this person is not being swallowed as a sacrifice; he may have another identity, a shaman or wizard. Classic mythology The Classic of Mountains and Rivers(山海经) said that in the process that a wizard tried to access directly to God, he would need the help of the animals to hold them with both hands or wear them on the ears, which exactly corresponded with the image of beast eats man on the chinese bronze. A shaman was resorting to his magic arts to contact with God. He and his assistants, that are the animals stood together while these large animals open their mouth wildly to blow wild winds to help the shaman to communicate with God. It can be seen that the decorations of miraculous animal on bronze statue are just the performance of vividly images of animals but also a medium of aiding the shaman’s communication with the God.
Taotie china bronze sculpture was much prevalent in Shang and early Western Zhou and came back to style after the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, but has lost its original dominant ferocious color and turned into beautiful ornaments.
Kui Long(夔龙纹), also known as kui, is an animal approximate to a legendary dragon animal patterns and more with a horn, a foot while its mouth open and the tail curling up. Some of Kuis are proved to be geometric patterns. There are basically three forms: buckling patterns, one dragon or several dragons coiling together and two or more dragons sharing one head.
Kui Long wen usually refers to that kind of horned dragon with arched body which normally is an image of a lateral view of the Kui. Some have fin-shaped feet under the belly while some not. It has many variations and is flexible to employ. Sometimes it acted as auxiliary pattern filling in the blanks of taotie on both sides and can also be arranged as ferret which is constructed by a continuous form individually. When Kui is patterned with swirls arranged in alternate is known as the fire dragon wen.
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