Art 173
Oct. 14, 2009
Shang Period Ritual Vessels: Meaning and Explanation

Erlitou Phase (19th – 16th c. BCE) (Xia Dynasty?)
Shang Period (1500-1050 BCE)
Zhengzhou Phase (16th- 14th c. BCE); Erligang site
Anyang Phase 13th-11th c. BCE)
Ding
Zun
Oracle Bones
Taotie

For Friday: What do the designs of Shang ritual vessels mean?

Reading symbolic meaning in artifacts of material and visual culture is a common scholarly practice, in which we have engaged throughout this class.  For Friday, please consider the issue of interpretation, especially the interpretation of visual imagery in pre-historical cultures. 
The two sides of the debate are outlined below.

Position A:
The designs on Shang dynasty bronzes act strictly as decoration intended to draw attention to the bronze vessel and assert its importance. Religious concepts are not necessarily related to decoration in a causal manner. Therefore, searching for symbolic meaning within a larger cultural context is useless.

Robert W. Bagley espouses this view in the reading for today’s class. Another proponent is Jessica Rawson:

“Changes made to the face pattern (taotie) over [the centuries] show little sign of any correlation with symbolism and belief. Patterns of scrolls surrounded the eyes, each example differing from the next. The scrolls are unlikely to have been prescribed by religious practice. Small changes and minute variations are just too numerous to have been specified in words. [The changes in the image over time] were not prescribed in advance by priests; they were made by craftsmen, each one exploiting his training in carving models with a range of hand movements informed by his own personal judgments of space and line…” (Jessica Rawson, “Late Shang Bronze Design: Meaning and Purpose,” in The Problem of Meaning, 77.)

“Meanings alone cannot and do not determine visual images.  Visual images are contrived and exploited, often by chance, for particular functions and uses; over time they acquire meanings through the associations of these functions with a particular image.  Thus the meanings of the taotie are likely to have depended upon the functions of the vessels on which it appeared; it was probably linked to the ritual offerings to the ancestors.  We cannot say much more than that.” (Jessica Rawson, Mysteries of Ancient China, pp. 252-254)
Position B:
Since we see the same, very specific zoomorphic designs repeated again and again on the bronze ritual vessels, they must contain some meaning that transcends decorative intent.  They are most likely symbols of religious beliefs, and as scholars our task is to come to some understanding of what they mean.  At least, we should try to uncover possible modes of understanding them. Some of the proposals for finding symbolic meaning are summarized below:

• Scholars in 11th century China claimed that the taotie represented a gluttonous monster devouring its own body. They believed that the image functioned as a warning against over indulgence.

• Ernst Gombrich notes the emphasis on the staring eyes in the taotie image, and argues that in many cultures the power of malevolent spirits it thought to be concentrated in eyes.  The gaze of these eyes is so penetrating that it inspires fear.  So Gobrich’s reading goes like this: The Shang kings were superstitious and primitive people who decorated their sacral vessels with the staring monster mask to scare away evil spirits that might lurk around them.   Using comparative psychological folklore, Gombrich describes other early cultures that employed the “evil eye” for similar reasons.

• Ma Chengyuan (and Sarah Allen, among others) thinks these designs may have pictographic meaning.  They invoke the power of natural forces.  These scholars look at symbols in other cultures, or point to ancient Chinese legends for support. Ma writes, “Images in the decoration were initially not an extraordinary aesthetic concept, but were conceived out of reverence for the forces of nature, and a naïve wish to control them.” Some of the symbols that they interpret:

• dragon – in later Chinese folklore associated with water – in one Emperor Yu colludes with dragon to control floods – later dragons were worshipped as gods of water, prayed to when people wanted to control floods
• phoenix – assoc. w/ wind in later folkloric tradition; pronunciation “feng,” same as pronunciation of wind “feng”
• whorl pattern – he thinks it looks like a pictograph that later is transformed into a character that is associated with fire

4.  K.C. Chang points to texts that tell us of the use of oracles and shamans in ancient China.  A shaman was a magic worker who entered into a trance and communicated with ancestors.  The oracle bones clearly record the shamanistic rituals performed for the Shang kings.  Chang thinks that animals were the vehicles of transport into the other world where the shaman communicated with the ancestors.  So “if animals… were the principal medium employed by shamans to communicate with heaven, then the possession of animal-styled ritual bronzes meant possession of the means of communication.”  And being in communication with the ancestors was what gave the ruler his power and legitimacy, so the bronze decor (taotie and the like) was intimately related to ritual and functional meaning of the bronze.