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Fong, Wen (ed.) & Ma Chengyuan & Robert W. Bagley & Jenny F. So & Maxwell K. Hearn

The Great Bronze Age of China. An Exhibition from the People's Republic of China.

Hatt Rare Books ILAB & CINOA
lbh308122
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art / Alfred A. Knopf, 1980. 4to. 30,2 x 22,5 cms. xvi + [ii] + 386 pp. Richly illustrated in colour. Publisher's cloth, pictorial dustjacket. Very fine.

(Publisher:) "With 121 plates in full color, photographed in China especially for this volume by Seth Joel, plus 10 maps and 130 black-and-white illustrations. Edited by Wen Fong, with four essays by leading Chinese and American scholars on Chinese Bronze Age culture, art, and technology. Full catalogue descriptions of each of the 105 objects making up The Great Bronze Age of China Exhibition. Foreword by Philippe de Montebello, Director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. - - - Here, in one magnificent volume, in authoritative text and color photographs of unparalleled richness, is the first comprehensive view of China's Bronze Age. From random discoveries over the centuries, from legends and written records that seem scarcely removed from the realm of legend, and from a few limited excavations, the Bronze Age in China has long been thought to be one of the great epochs in the history of art. Now, thanks to astonishing recent finds by Chinese archaeologists, those legendary glories have become reality. The evidence is here, in this book and in the unprecedented exhibition on which it is based - 105 precious objects in bronze, jade, and terracotta, chosen by the People's Republic of China from among the finest and most spectacular discoveries of recent years, and now seen for the first time outside their land of origin. Beginning with the shadowy Xia dynasty (which traditional chronology dates from 2205 to 1760 B.C.), coming into full flower in the Shang (now dated from about 1700 to about 1030 B.C.) and the Zhou (about 1030 to 256 B.C.), and lingering on through the Qin (221 to 206 B.C.) and into the Han that followed, the Chinese Bronze Age saw the development of the Chinese state, of writing and religious rituals, of architectural styles and urban culture. It also - and preeminently - saw the rise and refinement of bronze metallurgy, and the works of art that were its highest expression. No other people on earth has ever created such bronzes. The group shown and discussed here - ritual vessels, weapons, bronze standards, even a complete set of fourteen exquisite bells - may be the most impressive ever assembled, and includes discoveries so recent that they are virtually unknown even to scholars. Here are jars and cups in the shapes of rhinos and elephants and bulls and rams, surfaces inlaid with jade and malachite and precious metals, weapons echoing with the clangor of ancient wars. Here, too, is a splendid array of carved jade pieces - ceremonial blades and tablets, figurines, jewelry. - - - And there is more. Possibly the most stunning archaeological find of the twentieth century occurred in 1974, when excavation began in the huge mausoleum of Qin Shihuangdi, the First Emperor of Qin, who died in 210 B.C. after unifying China for the first time in history. Diggers came upon an entire army - no less than seven thousand life-size terracotta figures of soldiers, cavalrymen, and horses, with chariots and other battle gear, still standing, rank after rank, as they had been buried as a guard for their dead emperor more than two thousand years before. Individually modeled with great sensitivity and realism, they evoke their lost world with almost painful immediacy. Eight of them - six men and two horses - are included here, the first to be placed on exhibit anywhere outside China. Much is now known of the Chinese Bronze Age that could hardly be guessed before. In this book, lucid and detailed essays by four leading scholars set it forth, from the bronzes themselves to burial customs and chronology. Each object in the exhibit is discussed separately in its artistic, technical, and archaeological context by specialists, and there are linking passages to point out the historical setting. The Great Bronze Age of China is in all respects a revelation, of exotic beauty and a past remote beyond imagining. Authors of principal essays are: Ma Chengyuan, Curator, Shanghai Museum; Wen Fong, Special Consultant for Far Eastern Affairs, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Edwards Sanford Professor, Department of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University; Kwang-chih Chang, Professor of Anthropology, Harvard University; and Robert Thorp, Assistant Professor, Department of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University. The catalogue section was prepared by Robert W. Bagley and Jenny F. So, both Research Assistants in the Department of Fine Arts, Harvard, and Maxwell K. Hearn, Assistant Curator in the Department of Far Eastern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art".
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