HOMAGE TO THE ANCESTORS: Ritual art from the Chu Kingdom
3 Feb-26 April 2011
To coincide with Lunar New Year celebrations being mounted by the Sydney City Council in conjunction with the Chinese government and Hubei Province.
The rare opportunity to see these extraordinary treasures has eventuated because the gallery containing treasures from Jiulandun had to close to present an exhibition of paintings from the Uffizi.
To Please the Ones on High: Ritual Art in Ancient China
In early 9th century BCE, Xing, the aristocratic chief of a clan of late Western Zhou dynasty, commissioned several sets of ritual bronzes for the use of the ancestral temple. On one musical instrument he cast a lengthy inscription, which runs partially as follows: “…I made this set of harmonically tuned chime bells. Use it so as to please and exalt those who arrive in splendour, so as to let the accomplished men of former generations rejoice. Use it to pray for long life, to beg for an eternal life-mandate, [so that I may] extensively command a position of high emolument in respected old age and [enjoy] unadulterated happiness. My venerable august ancestors are loftily facing these illustrious achievements, [looking on] sternly from up on high. May they let me be rich and prosperous…Use [this set of bells] to make me radiate with glory, forever shall I treasure it.” This inscription sheds light on our understanding of early Chinese practices in making ritual bronzes.
Ancient Chinese belief was polytheistic, involving multiple deities. The cult of the ancestors, however, excelled all others in importance, which concerned with the relationships between dead and living kin. The practice, based on the belief that life continued after death, meaning the ancestral spirits needed to be well treated in order to effect some communal good. Ancestral temples were hence established to accommodate such needs. Liji, a Western Zhou ritual text, claims, “When a nobleman is about to engage in building, the ancestral temple should have his first attention, the stable and arsenal the next, and the residences the last….when he is to make things, the ritual vessels is the priority, the offerings, the next, and the utensils, the last.”
At such temples, a clan’s ancestors were worshipped; magnificent bronze vessels were cast to offer food and wine to those on high in elaborate ceremonial banquets. Musical instruments also played an important role in such ceremonies. As spirits and deities in such temples remained shapeless, and manifested only in memorial tablets, the ritual bronzes served as the means to communicate with the invisible beings, ascertaining their will. Such a function was fulfilled through zoomorphic and mystical decorations. The ritual bronze vessels gave meaning and authority to a temple, but only as long as they remained in it and served in the ritual ceremonies.
The ancestral temple, the ritual paraphernalia housed in it and the ritual activities conducted there combined identifies a clan’s political status, preserves memories of its past and links it to a large social network. When the Zhou dynasty was founded in around 1040 BCE, the ruler began a feudal form of governing by giving lands to clan members. The result was a tightly interrelated hierarchical structure, safeguarded by the ancestral ceremonies, as Liji puts it, their essence was “to go back to the Origin, maintain the ancient, and not forget those to whom they owe their being.” The performance of rites was about the maintenance of order: to make clan members aware of their common ancestry and homogeneity of the linage, and to recognise this hierarchy and incontrovertible order, from the heavens to the rulers to the courts to the people.
Because of the Chinese belief in an afterlife, bronzes used in the ceremonies of this life were placed in their owner’s tomb after death to provide the deceased with the same material environment enjoyed while living. Modern excavations of the tombs of the ruling elite have given the world a legacy of superb ritual objects of diverse shapes and certain purposes. Most of the paraphernalia for early rituals was made in cast bronze, but jade, lacquer and ceramic objects were also used. The prominent role bronze vessels played in the ritual context is demonstrated by the great number and variety that have been found, as well as the way their distinctive shapes were copied in other media such as lacquer. The number and style of vessels and accoutrements was strictly regulated in accordance with the deceased’s rank in the hierarchy.
Focusing on this theme of ritual art, and on a specific region, the ancient Chu kingdom in present-day Hubei province, the forthcoming exhibition Homage to the Ancestors provides insights into the meaning and history of one of China’s most vibrant and enduring cultures. It spans the Warring State period (481-221 BC) when regional warlords began to annex smaller states around them and consolidate their power. Chu in the mid Yangzi basin was one of the strongest states of the time. As it expanded to the south and east, it absorbed indigenous elements and developed a distinct culture moulded by the shamanist communities it absorbed. This unique culture is reflected in the shapes and decorative motifs of the magnificent ritual bronze vessels, which are larger in size and more ornate in appearance than those produced by other states. Similarly the ritual lacquer wares and jades demonstrate a unique visual language. Snakes, serpent-like creatures and birds were the continuing preoccupation in the arts of the state of Chu.
Drawn from the holdings of the Hubei Provincial Museum, 70 sets of stunning ritual bronzes vessels and musical instruments, lacquer wares and jades featured in this exhibition come mostly from the treasure-filled tombs of the Marquis Yi of Zeng (d. 433 BCE), and an anonymous aristocrat at Jiuliandun. The entombed bronzes demonstrate the burial (and therefore the use in life) of many more kinds of bronze objects than ever before. While they fulfilled various functions in their original context, they displayed an artistic perfection and a technological sophistication unparalleled anywhere else in the ancient world.
The tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng, excavated in 1978 at Leigudun in Sui County, Hubei province, is one of the most astonishing discoveries in Chinese archaeology, containing no less than ten metric tons of bronze artefacts. Many are magnificent large castings, remarkable for their size and the intricacy, as demonstrated by a huge set of bronze vessel for cooling or warming wine. One of the significant bronzes is an extraordinary bronze bird with a crane-like neck, long legs, a head with a long curved beak and two enormous antler-like appendages sweeping upwards; its body was originally inlaid with fine gold lines and turquoise, now mainly lost. Some bronzes are remarkable for their filigree decoration executed in lost wax casting. The intricate technology employed in casting some objects, such as the “Drum stand” that consists of more than 10 interlaced three-dimensional serpents, puzzles the modern craftsmen.
The two tombs at Jiuliandun in Zaoyang, Hubei, yielded over 5000 artefacts - ritual offerings of food and drink presented in bronze vessels of various shapes, weapons and armour, as well as a wealth of other luxury goods. The contents are a remarkable example of the all-round provision made for the afterlife. Among the key objects is set of 34 bronze bells, still suspended on a substantial lacquered wooden rack, capable of producing an almost complete chromatic scale. In addition the tomb was filled with very fine lacquer works.
Liu Yang, Senior Curator of Chinese Art