Beauty of Patterns: from Legend to Reality
2 min readThe combination of color pattern decorations and unique molds creates unique charms of bronze ware of ancient China. The bronze pattern decorations can be dated back to the ceramic designs represented with color paintings and depicting the Neolithic Age. The bronze patterns mark the different changes in the progressing periods of bronze art development.
In the early days of the Shang and Western Zhou dynasties, bronze ware pattern decoration mostly involved animals in legends and images, strange with thick shades of religion. From the middle of the Zhou Dynasty, the decoration gradually evolved into simple and abstract patterns.
In the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, bronze-ware making turned towards color and gilding, splendid and luxurious beauty and the pattern decoration became refined and exquisite, even complex. At the same time, designs were themes of daily life activities such as banquets, entertainment, hunting and fighting, indicating bronze ware art in China was transforming from the image of the divine world to the real world of humans.
Liangzhu Culture
Liangzhu Culture is one of the relics of the Neolithic Culture in China, and it got its name because it was first discovered in Liangzhu town, Yuhang, Zhejiang province in 1936. It was mainly distributed in Taihu Lake area, the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, about 5,300 to 4,000 years ago. The most important discovery in the cultural relics was jade ware. Besides, the pottery unearthed was also delicate. There were also signs of written characters and city.
LiZehou,a specialist in aesthetics, once described bronze ware art in the book Course of Beauty as “thebeauty of ferociousness.”He said,”If you look at the famous Ding of Shang and early Zhou dynasties, thebattle-axe with an animal face, the lightning patterns decorated on bronze ware, the Kuilong and Kuifeng snarled with the Taotie, the deformed animals which did not exist in the real world, for example the mysterious night messenger-Chixiao, the hormible man-faced Ding…. They are no longer the vivid, lifelike images in Yangshao color ceramic patterns, nor the mysterious but abstract geomety patterns. They are deformed, stylized, horrible animal images. What they present are a mysterious power and the beauty of ferociousness.”The ferocious and mysterious patterns can be described as the most atractive parts and attach strong emotional color to the bronze ware. However, the specific meaning of different patterns created in the remote ages is still a puzzle not completely solved.
