#you've stumbled into a niche area of art history I love

[tuktukpodfics]

[ID: Slightly larger than life-sized bronze statue of a bearded man. He has a realistic face and oversized, square shoulders and exaggerated, angular hands bigger than his face. There is an animal mask motif on his clothing. End ID]

As much as I adore this handsome statue, he’s not from the Shang dynasty!

He is a contemporary depiction of Cheng Tang (the founder of the Shang Dynasty) at the entrance of a Zhengzhou City Museum exhibit.

You can tell he's not from the Shang Dynasty a few ways:

The human depiction

Human depictions during the Shang dynasty are rare. People didn’t really make big shiny statues of their leaders all that much. Or if they did, the art didn’t survive to today.

A lot of the artwork that did survive from the Shang dynasty comes from graves, especially the tomb of Fu Hao (a military general and priestess). Most of the bronze artifacts found in graves are cauldrons and wine vessels; not human statues. Important people did have attendants accompany them to the afterlife, but instead of statues, real people and animals were sacrificed.

There are some depictions of humans, but they look like this (sighted folks, click the alt text for details about each piece):

The casting method

Early Shang bronzes were cast in sectioned moulds. You’d carve the design you wanted into slabs of clay and then pour the bronze in. Then, you’d crack the mould sections off and reuse them to make matching sets. Sometimes people also added little decorative wings (flanges) to the seams.

Here’s a diorama from the Zhengzhou City Museum of what that might’ve looked like:

I think this handsome man was probably made with a hollow lost-wax method instead, which was used more in the later Shang and Zhou dynasty. The statue has finicky detailing like the ears that lost-wax is better at capturing. Also there’s no visible seams (though, to be fair, there are bronzes with perfectly concealed seams from the Shang dynasty). Disclaimer that I'm really not that well versed in casting techniques.

The art style

His face is quite realistic. You know the terra-cotta warriors from the Qin dynasty? His face is more reminiscent of that time period. Shang artwork is more abstract and geometric. Here’s some examples of animals with abstract detailing.

You caught me. This section was mostly just an excuse to show you some cool bronzes.

Also, the statue isn’t behind glass

Anyways.

I think this statue is really neat! His small head, oversized limbs, and flat dimensionality looks kind of like a Corporate Memphis art style...but with Shang motifs and coloring. The statue reminds me a bit of Ren Xiong’s self portrait from the Qing dynasty, which has an extremely realistic western-style face and expressive, abstract brushwork for his clothes. This statue's realistic face, combined with Shang and Zhou bronze patterns, intentionally oxidized coloring, and exaggerated, square proportions is a little bit jarring. Like he’s seesawing between old and new.

Sources

Big thank you to the Zhengzhou City Museum and the National Museum in Beijing for caring for these artifacts and to Professor Garry Lee Todd for taking all the photos in this reblog as well as the original post photo. He has hundreds of museum photo tours on his website.

Shang Jade Kneeling Person Shang Jade Figure Bronze Casting, Xingyang & Shang City Shang Bronze Zun Shang Bronze Ding Shang Bronze Owl Zun

Bronze sculpture, China, Shang Dynasty circa 1600 - 1000 BC

Housed at the Zhengzhou City Museum