Bronze decoration
China's Bronze Age was formed around 2,000 BC, and it lasted fifteen centuries to the Spring and Autumn and Warring States Periods. In the late Shang Dynasty and early Western Zhou Dynasty, the level of bronze smelting and casting technology reached its peak. The strong emotional factors of bronze art mainly come from those unique decorative patterns in the Shang and Zhou dynasties. From the patterns of Taotie, Kuilong, Phoenix and Bird, we can see their relationship with the primitive social pottery and jade patterns.
The patterns commonly used in bronze ware include: taotie pattern, kuilong pattern, dragon pattern (crawling dragon pattern, scroll dragon pattern, double-body dragon pattern), jiaolong pattern, snake pattern (coiling 虺 pattern, pan worm detached pattern) , bird pattern, phoenix pattern, corrugated and other bronze patterns.
1. The name of the Taotie pattern comes from "Lu Shi Chunqiu Xianzhilan": "Zhou Ding wrote Taotie, with a head but no body, cannibalism without swallowing, harming the body, and repaying with words." The main feature is its main body Part of it is a frontal image of an animal head, with very protruding eyes, a large cleft mouth, horns and ears. Some have claws and tails on both sides, and some have long bodies and curly tails on both sides. In fact, they are composed of two Kuilong patterns with the bridge of the nose as the center and their sides facing each other. The Kuilong pattern was also a popular one at that time. Ornamentation. It is mostly used as an auxiliary pattern. The nose, horns, and mouth of the Taotie pattern vary a lot. From the different shapes of the horns and ears, it can be recognized that the life prototypes are mostly animals such as cattle, sheep, and tigers. Cattle and sheep are the main "sacrifices" of sacrificial activities.
Taotie patterns are mostly applied to the main decorative parts of utensils, carved with flexible Yin lines, or raised as Yang lines. The composition is full, and the two sides of the main pattern are filled with varied cloud and thunder patterns, which has the beauty of complementary yin and yang. Taotie pattern was mainly popular in the Shang Dynasty and the early Western Zhou Dynasty, and became popular again after the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, but it has lost its original dominant position and fierce color, and has become a gorgeous decoration.
2. Kuilong pattern is one of the decorative patterns on bronze wares. The pattern represents a legendary dragon-like animal, Kui, mostly with one horn and one foot, with an open mouth and a curled tail.
In the records since the Song Dynasty, on bronze wares, any reptile-like image with one leg is called Kui or Kui dragon, which is related to the record of "Kui one leg" in ancient books.
"Kui, God, also has one foot like a dragon." Some Kui patterns have developed into geometric decorations, which have changed greatly. It is common to have a body as a dichotomy, or a body as a diagonal, with a Kui head at each end. It was popular in the early Shang and Western Zhou Dynasties. Kui dragon pattern usually refers to the profile dragon image with a long arched body and horns on the head. Some have flipper-shaped feet under the abdomen, and some do not. It has many changes and is flexible to use. Sometimes it is used as an auxiliary pattern to fill in the blanks on both sides of the taotie pattern. It can also form a continuous decorative belt alone. The two-sided continuous pattern of Kui dragon pattern and circular scroll pattern is called fire dragon pattern.
3. Dragon pattern is one of the decorative patterns on bronze wares. The dragon is an animal in the legends of ancient China. Generally, the frontal image is reflected, with the nose as the midline, the eyes on both sides, and the body extending to both sides. If the image is made from its profile, it will become a long body and a claw.
The image of the dragon originated very early, but as a bronze decoration, it was first seen in the Erligang period of the Shang Dynasty. Later, in the late Shang Dynasty, the Western Zhou Dynasty, the Spring and Autumn Period, and the Warring States period, dragon patterns appeared in different forms. In the Shang Dynasty, it was mostly in the form of buckling; in the Western Zhou Dynasty, it was mostly in the form of several dragons coiled around each other, or with the head in the middle and two tails. Legend has it that the appearance of the dragon is related to water. "Kaogongji·The Story of Painting and Filing" says: "Water is the dragon, and fire is the circle." It uses the image of the dragon to symbolize the water god. Therefore, in the bronze water vessel, the dragon picture scroll Or three-dimensional images have more appearances. According to the structure of the dragon pattern, it can be roughly divided into several types: crawling dragon pattern, scroll dragon pattern, flood dragon pattern, two-headed dragon pattern and double-body dragon pattern. Creeping dragon pattern, usually a profile image of a dragon, crawling, with its mouth open, its upper lip curled upwards, its lower lip curled downwards or upwards toward its mouth, horns on the top of its forehead, a torso in the middle, one foot, two feet or only one foot below There are flipper-like, simple and footless, and the tail is usually curved and rolled up. Mostly arranged symmetrically. It was popular in the late Shang and Western Zhou dynasties.
Scrolled dragon pattern, the torso of the dragon is curled, connected end to end, or spirally coiled, often decorated in the center of the plate. "Yili · Yuzao": "Dragon rolls are used for sacrifice." Zheng Xuan's note: "Drawing dragons on clothes." Kong Yingda Shu: "Dragon rolls are used for sacrifices, and the rolls are called curls. Draw this dragon shape and curl it on the clothes to worship the ancestral temple. "In ancient times, dragons and snakes were believed to be of the same kind, so dragons were painted as snakes with coiled bodies. There are such decorations on bronze wares from the Yin Ruins to the Warring States Period, but the image structure is different.
Double-body dragon pattern, also known as "two-tailed dragon pattern". Its shape is centered on the dragon's head, and the torso spreads out to both sides. This kind of decoration is in the shape of a belt, so there is room for the body to fully expand. In fact, it is a symmetrical figure of the overall development of the dragon. It is popular at the end of the Shang Dynasty and the beginning of the week. Most of them are applied on the mouth of Fang Yi or Fang Ding.
4. Jiaolong pattern is one of the decorative patterns on bronze wares. It is a pattern of intertwined torsos of two or more dragons. There are many differences in the structure, there is a continuous single body, the dragon's torso is regularly intertwined and connected in the same direction, and there are many dragon bodies intertwined together, forming a multi-layered type. "The princes painted Jiaolong, one as it rises to the dynasty, and the other as it descends" is an image of Jiaolong intertwined with dragons. It was popular from the late Spring and Autumn period to the early Warring States period.
5. Snake pattern is a kind of decoration on bronze ware. It has a triangular or round triangular head, a pair of protruding large round eyes, and a body with scales, which is curly and long. The characteristics of snakes are obvious, and often the decoration is very small. Some people think it is silkworm pattern. A few have as the main pattern, which can be seen on the bronze wares of the Shang Dynasty.
The snake patterns in the late Shang and early Zhou dynasties were mostly arranged individually; the snake patterns in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods were mostly small and coiled and intertwined, which was formerly called "coiled snake pattern". The coiled-bottle pattern, in the image of a coiled snake, constitutes a geometric figure. It was popular in the Spring and Autumn Period and Warring States Period. Panchong Liwen, the pattern represents a legendary dragon without horns, oblique mouth, curly tail, and pan flexion. It was popular in the Spring and Autumn Period and Warring States Period.
6. Bird patterns are one of the decorative patterns on bronze wares. The long feathers of the bird curl up the vertical tail or the long tail, making it look forward or look back. Most of the bronzes are arranged symmetrically. The jade cong unearthed from the Liangzhu Culture has clear bird patterns. The earliest appearance on bronzes is the deformed bird pattern of the Erligang period.
In the Yin Ruins period, bird patterns had already been used as the main decoration. A large number of bird patterns appeared in the early Western Zhou Dynasty until the Spring and Autumn Period. In the Shang Dynasty, the bird patterns were mostly short-tailed, while in the Western Zhou Dynasty, the bird patterns were mostly long-tailed and high-crowned. Bird patterns include phoenix patterns, owl patterns, luan patterns, and geese patterns arranged in groups.
7. The phoenix bird pattern is also a common bronze ornamentation in the Shang and Zhou dynasties, and the variation in its development and evolution has the significance of dating. The type called phoenix pattern has a crown on the head, some have horns, and the tail feathers are scattered, which are often used as the main decorative surface. From the late Shang Dynasty to the Western Zhou Dynasty, long-tailed bird patterns and small bird patterns were popular, mostly used for decorative belts or as auxiliary decorations.
8. Corrugation (ring pattern) is a wide and smooth curved pattern, with a lively and smooth image. The Jiaolong pattern decorated on the belly of the Western Zhou Song pot is used in conjunction with the ripples. The Jiaolong decoration made by relief technique winds into a large wave shape, which rises and falls according to the front side, width and width of the pot body.
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