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17. Western Vases vs Chinese Vases - July 2010
Vases have been used through the centuries to hold ornaments, flowers and most importantly the ashes of those dearly departed from us - usually covered with a lid. It's understandable to see why people are so interested in them. With their clear brilliance and the fine details in their appearance, vases have become a favorite in many homes. The myth of these Chinese vases being no longer popular is far from the truth. With the differences in western vases becoming more prominent, Chinese vases are coming back into style.
What are the differences between Western Vases and Chinese vases?
Shape:Chinese vases have the shape of an apple core in most of their prominent pieces, with a big round belly, a narrower head and shoulder, and a similarly narrower foot . Western pieces are often more abstract and varied. It can be a tall glass, or it can possess an almost bowl-like quality. The Chinese pieces are much more likely to hold onto their historic heritage.
Detail is in the Design:Not a lot of western vases are very detailed. Even if they do have a design upon them, they are usually big designs that look as though the minimum effort was put into making them. Chinese vases are dedicated to their design with elaborate patterns and designs implemented onto their unique shapes. Flowers, forests, tree and martial arts are careful drawn and painted onto the vases, allowing each one to seem unique.
Color:Western Vases are generally in one solid color, without any intricate patterns or designs embellished upon them. Chinese vases are considered so much more than a vase. They are considered art pieces that are meant to be shared and adorned.
Western vases were deeply influenced by ancient Greek vases. Greek vases varied in functions and shapes but mostly they shared a common big and deep belly. You can easily spot Greek influenced vases everywhere in Europe and in a lot of places in the US, especially in the south.
Ancient Chinese vases had a lot of in common in shapes with Greek vases. Most of these early vases served as functional vessels, such as wine containers. The shapes of vases slowly changed to the dominant apple core shape over centuries and have been holding on to varieties of this shape until recently.
With the growing middle class population in today's China, more people can have the luxury to spend more money on decorative items for their homes. This new wave of wealth has spurred interests in design and manufacturing modern furniture, appliances and home decorations such as vases. Vases have evolved from their homogenous shapes to more varieties. Vases nowadays are made from all sorts of materials such as ceramic, pottery, glass, clay, wood, metal, stone or plastics.
The vases we carry on our website are made mostly from cloisonne and cinnabar lacquer, which are two very traditional trade of arts and crafts of China. Although these vases we carry are in traditional forms, we are working diligently on design and manufacturing more delicate and interesting pieces. Check back to our website in the near future to see these new products.
16. History of Cloisonne - July 2010
Cloisonne is a renowned ancient technique used to decorate metalwork objects. In the early centuries, vitreous enamel was used to engrave colors into these artifacts, however, in the later years they started adding gemstones, precious minerals and glass.
Early Cloisonne Techniques
The History of Cloisonne is a short but interesting one. The technique was developed while working with jewelry in the Near East. There jewelry pieces small; mostly rings and bracelets but due to the popularity of the technique surrounding cultures adopted the process. This is why Cloisonne stands for not only the process of embellishing the product, but also the object itself. The earliest recognition of this art form was found in the Yuan Dynasty that reigned from 1271 and 1368. It was only during the XuanDe period, in 1426, when the product became popular amongst other cultures.
The process in creating a Cloisonne piece was a long and a tiring one. Initially the pot or object had to be base hammered. A coppersmith would create the patterns upon the vase or pieces being created. The object would be painted, only to be filled with enamel. Then the objects would be fired into extreme temperatures to make sure that pigments melted into each appropriate cell. Painstaking dedication was needed, as some objects would need six to seven firings.
The surface was then meticulously polished by a wheel while nowadays an electric wheel is used to polish the enamel. It is then fired for the last time, so that it can finally be polished with a whetstone and carbon. Any metal filigree that was exposed was electroplated with gold or silver. This would prevent any oxidation happening from the dulling of the filigree.
To create the fine shine that is renown through the Cloisonne Artifacts, a final polish was encouraged and then the products were sent off to be sold.
Trade of Cloisonne Artifacts
While trade with the Oriental Countries was booming, Cloisonne trade was not as popular as Porcelain in the earlier centuries. There was a greater focus on the tea, textile and porcelain industry. During the later centuries, the demand and need from Cloisonne increased leading to the lucrative industry we have today.
Unlike Chinese Porcelain, the History of Cloisonne is often not known or remarked upon. With the growing popularity of this art, however, more people are learning about the impact of oriental craftsmanship upon this technique.
15. History on Chinese Porcelain Export - July 2010
Chinese porcelain has long been one of the most treasured and valued porcelain in the world. What started as a small partnership in the 16th Century, developed into one of the most lucrative trading contracts throughout the world. In the 18th and 19th Century, popularity of Chinese porcelain expanded.
As the Chinese Porcelain Export system was monopolized in the beginning years, later centuries offered private business men more opportunities to make money. By then, the wares being sold were of a finer quality than the previous shipments that had gone through. These shipments, purchased by private traders, would be sent via rented space from the Dutch East India Company.
A large part of the shipments that went out from Chinese Porcelain export were tea services and dinner services. A luxury amongst western families, these porcelain services were not affordable to the everyday common man. The distinct patterns found on the Chinese porcelain were generally blue and white, decorated with various pine, flowers and bamboo or pagoda landscapes.
A few savvy tradesmen would first send off their shipments to England or The Netherlands to be enameled (clobbered). By getting them clobbered, they were not only increasing their esthetic appeal but also increasing the price at which to sell them.
Although the quality and standard of the porcelain increased throughout the years, Chinese Porcelain exports started to decline in the 19th century. There were two big reasons for this decline in sales and shipping. The first was, as expected, that people's tastes were changing although this was not the major cause. Industrial Revolution crushed the rest of the sales for Chinese Porcelain. With cheaper, quicker methods of producing dinner and tea services people would often prefer to buy these than spend a lot of money on the Oriental variety.
The most popular style of porcelain being produced in the 19th century was Canton porcelain. Due to the decline in sales and export shipments quality of these products started to decline heavily. By the end of the 19th Century, the Kangxi Porcelain style was being produced in large quantities.
As with everything, Chinese Porcelain export history can give us a precise view of how market demand can shift within a couple years. Luckily, however, Chinese Porcelain export throughout the 18th and 19th Century produced many fine wares that are currently being sold by antique shops and art collectors.
14. Chinese Dragons Symbolize Power, Strength and Energy - June 2010
Chinese Dragons are creatures from Chinese folklore, typically portrayed as long snake-like creatures with four legs. Unlike in Western culture, which typically uses dragons as symbols for evil or war, the Chinese Dragon is a symbol of strength, power, luck, and magical power. It is a benevolent symbol of ethnic identity. The feminine version of the Chinese Dragon is the Chinese Phoenix, the FengHuang. See below a picture of a dragon and a phoenix in one of the cinnabar lacquer plates we carry.
Its use by the Chinese Emperors Yan Di and Huang Di, the first legendary Emperors, contributed to its use in imperial artwork as a symbol of imperial power. During the Qing dynasty, it was featured prominently on robes, pottery, and on the national flag. It is carved into imperial palaces, tombs, and monuments. Here is a picture of the "Nine flying dragons wall" in forbidden city, Beijing, China.
Today, the Chinese Dragon is mostly used for decoration. Even still, its powers are still used by those seeking upward mobility, increased energy, better jobs, or better luck. If you would like to remind yourself of the power of the Chinese Dragon, consider purchasing a vase or jewelry featuring the Dragon. Below is a cloisonne plate featuring a dragon.
In Mandarin, outstanding people are typically compared to Dragons. Chinese proverbs typically feature references to the dragon in this manner.
According to Wang Fu, a Han Dynasty scholar, the mythical Chinese Dragon has nine distinctive resemblances to real creature. He writes, "His horns resemble those of a stag, his head that of a camel, his eyes those of a demon, his neck that of a snake, his belly that of a clam, his scales those of a carp, his claws those of an eagle, his soles those of a tiger, his ears those of a cow." Occasionally, Dragons are depicted with a pearl under their chin. This pearl represents wealth and prosperity.
The Dragon's eternal rival in Chinese culture is the Tiger. In Chinese art, Dragons are typically seen fighting Tigers, locked in an eternal struggle. These symbols are featured prominently in sports and martial arts. On an embroidered silk gauze ritual garment found in a Zhou era tomb in Hubei province, a design features dragons, phoenixes, and tigers.
It may be considered bad luck to depict a dragon facing downward. It is seen as disrespectful to place a dragon oriented in such a manner that he cannot ascend toward the sky.
As ancient symbols of Chinese folklore, the Chinese Dragon is still widely found today in Chinese culture. In Chinese mythology, wearing the symbol of the Dragon may serve to increase your luck, wealth, or power.
13. Technology Advances in Golden Age Tang Dynasty- June 2010
Tang dynasty (618 - 907) of China was one of the golden times in Chinese history. Political stability and advancements had enabled technology, literature, science, culture, music and art to sprout and blossom.
The technology of China became very well developed during the Golden Age of the Tang Dynasty. The Tang Chinese developed new techniques for salt mining (and as a result of the search for salt, developed methods of drilling for natural gas - tapping the earth to a depth of almost one kilometer.
One of the major technological advances of the Tang Dynasty was the invention of woodblock printing. This invention aided the Tang both in the creation of a civil service and a government - because they were able to standardize the classical texts necessary for civil service examinations - and in continuing to record and standardize and codify their knowledge in general. Below is a pictures of a collection of woodblocks with Chinese characters carved in reverse.
They also had mechanical clocks - at first they had water clocks, but they developed also springs and spring wound clocks. They understood the concept of the pendulum.
The Tang Chinese also made medical advances - they knew that people who suffered from diabetes should not eat starchy foods or drink alcohol, and they were able to cure goiter using the thyroid hormone from pigs and sheep. They developed and codified a materia medica and the equivalent of a modern Physician's Desk Reference. They understood the health effects of various herbs.
The Tang Chinese traded with the Ottoman Turks, the Persians, the Eastern Byzantine Empire, and the Western European countries and city states via a well guarded, heavily taxed Silk Road. Since the Tang was at the endpoint of the Silk Road, they had access to many different cultures and to the technology of many different cultures. They had the advanced mathematical capability of the Ottoman Turks (although it is not certain if they ever developed the differential equation, the basis for calculus. If they did, they didn't think much of it, for there is no written record. But one could guess that they might have developed it at some point during the 300 years of Tang rule.)
There were advances in astronomy and therefore in the navigation of ships. They were the first to trace the meridian line on the ground, they developed extremely accurate star maps, and developed the concept of the telescope which they borrowed from the Ottomans and refined. See below murual picture of a Tang Dynasty ship being sheered by onlookers.
One of the things that happened as a result of the technological advances of the Tang period was the philosophical change in Chinese society. By the end of the Tang and the beginning of the Song Dynasty, Buddhism, with its emphasis on disengagement from the humanistic world as a means of spiritual purification, had fallen out of favor - this was probably a direct result of the reprinting of the works of Mencius and others from the Confucian period. The Neo-Confucianism of the mid to late Tang Dynasty and the Song Dynasty philosophically described life in China better than Buddhism - it became clear to the ever more cosmopolitan Chinese urbanites of the time that being a Buddhist monk conferred no special purity.
Gun powder was invented by the Chinese in Tang Dynasty. It was originally used in fire crackers to repel evils and ghosts. It's not until another golden dynasty - the Song dynasty that Chinese began to make canons utilizing gun powders. See picture below for Tang dynasty kids playing with fire crackers.
Ultimately, the Song Dynasty fell to the Mongols, and the Mongols turned the Han Chinese' own great weapon against them - gunpowder. The Mongols used ordinance; they used artillery that a US Army Gunner of today would understand the workings of. Although the Tang was three centuries gone by the point of the Mongol invasion of China, the Song dynasty that followed was also a kind of golden age for China during which Neo-Confucianism was the prevailing thinking and the Chinese were hundreds of years ahead of Western Europe technologically.
In a way, the weapons that kept Chinese order against anti-government rural peasant rebellions and civil unrest, the weapons that the Chinese used to keep a tight grip on their empire, became their undoing. The Chinese could not keep the secrets of gunpowder to themselves, and ultimately that was what destroyed parts of the Great Wall and let the Mongols in.
12. Traditional Chinese medicine and crystals - May 2010
Chinese traditional medicine holds that illness and disease spring from improper flow of chi. The term chi does not translate directly into English as it is a concept with a multilayered and heavily subtextual meaning. Loosely, chi translates as "life force" or "soul force" or "the river of force that makes living things alive". It can also be translated as "go power" or "the thing that makes living things go" or "the thing that enables living things to propel themselves".
However you translate it, traditional Chinese medicine held that bodily illnesses occurred because of improperly flowing chi. Chinese medicine holds that the human body lives under the direct influence of its environment or habitat and that psychological and physical problems can result in improper flow of chi when the environment is not right.The basics of Chinese traditional medicine were laid down about 2000 years ago in the text called the Huang di nei jing - "The Yellow Emperor's Inner Canon". The book is a series of dialogues between the legendary Yellow Emperor of China and his philosophers Qi Bo, Le Gong, and others. The Yellow Emperor begins by asking why "in the old days": people lived to one hundred and fifty without showing signs of age but in "modern" times people look old and die at fifty. It goes on to talk about organ health, treatment, manipulation of chi within the body and other topics.
The book is believed to be one of the first human attempts to codify medical knowledge into a consistent logical system. In this sense it is on a par with works by people like Hippocrates and Galen - it is one of the oldest codified systems of medicine in the world. Some scholars - notably Nathan Sivin at the University of Pennsylvania believe that the modern translations of what we call the "Huangdi neijing" are actually compilations, and that the text that existed during the Han Dynasty was a different text of which the modern text may contain only parts or fragments.
To illustrate what is meant by "harmony with one's environment" in traditional Chinese medicine, I've included a translation of one of the "treatises" in the Huang di nei jing.
In other words, as goes the universal environment, so goes the human body. If the "yang qi" of the universe/environment flows improperly so does the yang qi of the people living in it. (Incidentally, this is where feng shui comes from - a codified system of interior decoration to best manipulate the flow of chi).
To learn more about Traditional Chinese medicine, check out an expereinced Chinese doctor and accupunturists - Dr. Tian LongDu's website. Dr. Du has more than 40 years of experience in western and TCM treatment. He has established his accupuncture clinic in Roswell (greater Atlanta), Georgia for 10 years.
Beryl is classified in Chinese medicine as being part of the water element. It is believed to be good for the throat, for sexual potency, and for redirecting chi (emeralds, a rare green form of beryl, are believed by practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine to be able to expel or dispel evil spirits from a person or place).
Now obviously, we can't make any medical claims whatsoever about our beryl crystals. Medical problems are best handled by a doctor. But our beryl crystals give a warm, golden light to any room - just put them in a sunbeam and watch them sparkle with a nice, milky glow. They can make a house feel more like a home and brighten up any room. Check them out here.
11. Chinese Screens - May 2010
Chinese screens have a long history. They date back almost 2000 years . In the beginning they were used emperors and nobles as a symbol of power, authority and wealth. It wasn't until the Tang Dynasty (618-907) that screens began to be available to average people.
The function of a screen in Chinese interior decoration is to provide background (such as the screens behind a throne). They were also used as wall panels, space dividers, doorway greetings or simply for decoration.
There are different types of screens - vertical screens, inserting screens and folding screens. Vertical screens are usually used as the backdrop of a sitting area, like a parlor. Inserting screens are panels inserted into lavishly made stands. They are usually not very tall and mostly used for decoration. Folding screens are the ones that divide a space such as a restaurant or home or place of business in two - leaving it to the imagination of the patrons or guests to wonder what or who is on the other side of the screens.
Here is an example of inserting screens - Wood Screen Inlaid with Stained Ivory, Jade, collection of the Palace Museum
The frames of Chinese screens are made from all sorts of high quality fine grain woods and the screen panels can be made from a wide variety of materials - wood, stone, bamboo, silk, paper, cotton, and more.
The screens were decorated with carvings, paintings, calligraphy, inlaid gem stones and sometimes lacquer. These different designs of screens reveal the social status, taste, personality, or life experience of the homeowner who would spend a lot of time and money to create screens that reflected him uniquely.
In modern China, there has been a revival of interest in classical screens in recent years. One of the reasons for that probably is that living spaces in China have become bigger and it makes sense to use a screen to divide the room to two - for example, dividing the dinning room from the kitchen.
And even more likely reason for screens than the larger living spaces isthe sense of mystery that is provided by the screens. Chinese people are usually very private people. They like to create a space for themselves away from the public eye. By putting a screen in the living room, they can always retreat to the area behind the screens if they have to converse amongst themselves away from the guests. Also, by putting a screen right at the entrance to a court yard, the host can check his appearance, prepare his speech before he meets his guests, but after he hears their footsteps.
The other purpose of putting a screen as doorway greetings is that the host expresses his welcome to his guests but at the same time to hint the guests that this is his territory and the guests are not free to poke around.
A famous Westerner from a totally different culture also adored Chinese screens. Coco Chanel had a quite impressive collection of 17th (Qing KangXi reign) century Chinese lacquered folding screens in her Paris apartment. See a pictucre of one of her screens below,
Read more about Coco Chanel's screens in this wonderful blog.
The best way to understand a Chinese classical screen is to get one for yourself and place it somewhere in your home then let your thoughts flow to the far away ancient times and lives of the people who lived around these screens. Han China has an old culture, very different than the young, exuberant, vivacious culture of the West. One of the keys to understanding Chinese culture is to understand subtlety and fine divisions between concepts. The screens are an example of that - they provide privacy and send signals to guests and patrons in a subtle way.
10. Chinese Calligraphy - April 2010
Chinese classical calligraphy is a highly structured, stylized, elegant system of writing classical Chinese characters. The characters are created with brush strokes.
Interestingly enough, the beauty of classical Chinese calligraphy does not come from symmetry and regularity. It comes from beautiful asymmetry and irregularity. When Chinese calligraphy is well done, there is a roughness to the characters that is the artist's means of expression. Chinese calligraphy is similar to abstract painting (and in fact it forms the basis of Chinese abstract painting.) What the word is - or the meaning of the characters does not matter so much as how those characters are expressed. The same characters can be expressed in many ways and styles - playfully, angrily, sensually, and so on. An artist's skill lies, as always, in his ability to manipulate the medium and say what he wants to say the way he wants to say it.
Tu Meng, writing during the T'ang Dynasty developed 120 ideas or what might be called aphorisms related to Chinese calligraphy. He gave examples and descriptions of each. Reproduced below are the first five on his list.
Chinese classical calligraphy often is done the same way every time - in much the same sense that in English literature, a sonnet always takes the same form. The form has a very strict meter and always ends with a rhymed couplet. If the poet does not take that form and that meter, he has not written a sonnet. But within that sonnet, he has the freedom to say anything he likes, any way he wants to say it. People have experimented by writing, for instance, 14 lines of basic phonological /alliterative blank syllable verse ending in a rhymed couplet. This is a sonnet and has virtue.
So it goes with Classical Chinese calligraphy. An artist is free to say anything he likes any way he likes to say it as long as he follows the form. The form is very strict and usually the brush strokes that make up the characters are laid in the same way every time, in the same order.
In Chinese calligraphy, the basic tools are: page, paperweight, desk pad, ink stick, brush. The ink stick is solid material that is ground into usable ink by the paperweight.
The best Chinese calligraphy has a rhythm and a balance to its creation and execution. To watch a calligrapher is to watch someone who does not waste motion or break his rhythm. It's like watching a dancer - he is engaged in the rhythm of creation and expression.
To say, as many Westerners do, that Chinese are inscrutable or reserved is incorrect; it is a misnomer. By way of example.American art springs from a young, vibrant, raucous, sometimes raunchy, scruffy culture. (These are not bad things; they have been the wellspring of amazing art). American art springs from a culture that is young and unrestrained - it is more akin to Hemingway in Paris or Van Gogh in Arles. Chinese art is more like Pablo Picasso in Mougins - older, more careful, less explosive, greater mastery of the medium, more technically skilled - more able to express complex ideas in a given medium more easily.
Chinese culture is 5000 years old. The view of art is a more mature view. To say it is "better" than the American view is likewise a misnomer. Some like Beaujolais Noveau, tight, a clean, new grape that beguiles the tongue and makes youthful the heart. Some like Armagnac 1947 Vaghi Baron de Sigognac, older, well developed vintage with a deeper spirit and a finer grained soul. It is a matter of preference.
Here is a finished calligraphy writing of a famous contemporary Chinese calligrapher, Mr. Cao, Bao Lin.
Watch this video clip of Chinese calligrapher - Cao, Bao Lin writing Chinese characters in the "grass" style - a more abstract and carefree style in Chinese calligraphy.
Cao, Bao Lin writing Chinese characters
9. An Introduction to Chinese Closionne Enamel - Yuan Dynasty - April 2010
This article includes a series of three sections, which cover the history, artistic and technological characteristics of enamel wares in Yuan (1271-1368), Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasty.
Series 1- Enamel wares in the Yuan (1271-1368) Dynasty, the beginning
In Chinese history, there have been four different types of enamelwares. They are distinguished by the process used to produce them -
The four processes are: cloisonne, painted enamel, champleve and translucent enamel.
Cloisonne is made by gluing copper or brass wires onto a copper or brass body that has been shaped around a frame. Bodies are made in the shapes of vases, trinket boxes, incense burners, and so on.. These wires form small compartments called cloisonne - French for "cells". The cloisonne are then filled with colored enamel powders. The copper or brass wares are then fired several times and polished until the surface is smooth, then gilded with gold.
Painted enamel is made by painting enamel paste directly on copper or brass bodies, much like painting white clay to color porcelain. Then the painted item is fired and gilded with gold.
Champleve is very much like cloisonne except that the cells are not made by wires. The inside of the body of the item is either carved, pressed or stamped to form recesses. The recesses are filled with colored enamel powder. Then they go through the same firing, polishing and gilding process as cloisonne.
Translucent enamel is mostly made in southern China, particularly in the Canton province. It's also referred as "Canton enamel". The biggest difference is the enamels used in this type of artwork. They are translucent instead of opaque. This branch of Chinese cloisonne shares similar characteristics with modern Japanese cloisonne - which almost always uses translucent enamels to give it the look and feel of glass, fine porcelain or polished lacquer.
Modern Chinese cloisonne enamel techniques are thought to have been brought to China from west Arabic regions such as Persia (today's Iran) in the Yuan dynasty. The Yuan dynasty was founded in 1271 by the Mongol King Kublai Khan.
The Mongol army invaded a lot of western central Asian territories during the short reign of its rulers. They killed people mercilessly but kept people with specific skills. They made them slaves and took them back to China. It was believed that skilled enamel artisans were among the people brought in by the Mongolians. This has been recorded in various historical documents in Chinese history.
The Yuan dynasty made their capital in today's Beijing. Persian enamel artisans flourished in Southern China in Yunnan province. They later migrated north to Beijing to find a higher quality of life. They brought their enamel making skills with them. They also brought very high quality enamels to China. These enamels have the look of glass which is different than Ming and Qing enamels.
Yuan's enamel ware design was influenced by Arabic art and culture. You can detect Arabic themed patterns in some Yuan closionnes. But unfortunately, closinnne wares are fragile artifacts and very few from this period survive to this day.
The Palace Museum's collection of cloisonne includes some rare Yuan cloisonne wares. See pictures below:
The above pictures from left to right, top to down are
1. Three eared cloisonne wine vessel with lotus flowers and leaves. The enamels are believed to be used only in Yuan dynasty. The vessel was modified in Ming dynasty. The green leaves around
the neck and bottom has Arabic influence to them.
2. Lamaism cloisonne vase. Lamaism is a branch of buddhism, which is the dominate religion in Mongo and Tibet. This vase bears the very shape of a lamaism pagoda. Notice the carvings on the gold
around the neck and bottom rim is very typical Yuan patterns.
3. Three footed cloisonne incense burner. Notice the glassy green and blue colored enamels.
4. Elephant eared cloisonne lotus flowers and leaves incense burner. Notice the glassy green and sky blue colored enamels.
The other way to distinguish Yuan cloisonne is the markings. Usually Ming or Qing wares were marked with Chinese characters to indicate the reign in which the artwork was made. Yuan cloisonnes usually don't usually bear any marks or the sometimes use a design (without any characters) as the mark.
Early Ming wares are sometimes not marked either. So it's a bit hard to the difference between late Yuan and early Ming cloisonnes. This is usually not a big problem since the Yuan dynasty only reigned for 97 years.
Despite its beauty, Yuan cloisonne was not well accepted by the Chinese at that time due to its origin. Yuan Chinese guarded themselves as the center of the world. Persia was considered the "devil country". Anything made by the devil country was not popular and was only suited to satisfy the fancies of women.
Cloisonne techniques kept developing in spite of its early unpopularity. It later became a main interest of the Ming and Qing imperials.
References:
1. Enamel Ware - Collection of the Palace Museum by Chen, Li Hua 2008
2. Oriental Cloisonne and Other Enamels by Arthur and Grace Chu, 1975
8. Modern Chinese Interior Decoration - April 2010
Modern Chinese interior decorating uses simple, clean lines and a very modernist, almost minimalist look. A modern Chinese luxury interior will be very influenced by postmodernist thinking - so the furniture will be modern or neo-Traditional, the colors with be whites, blacks, and greys, and the layout of the rooms will be clean and open.
picture courtesy 14 YA, a Chinese interior design company.
This differs from the Traditional Chinese luxury homes of the past, in the days of feudalism and the Ming and Q'ing dynasties, when furniture was ornate, almost what we Westerners would call rococo - carved with natural themes (monkeys, dragons, and carp were favorites) and heavily brocaded with elaborately patterned fabrics and soft, fringed and tasseled cushions. In a Classical Chinese interior, the dominant color would be deep shades of red (red is a lucky color in Chinese folklore and folk culture) for paint and fabric, gold accents, and dark reddish brown for furniture. Chairs would sometimes have carefully, intricately woven backs and would often be oversized.
Modern Chinese luxury decorating favors simplicity and discipline - it is part of Chinese culture that discipline in all things is a means to success. ( Although most Chinese don't think of themselves as especially disciplined until they reach America and see us up close - for instance open losses of temper or control and direct person to person violence are virtually *unknown* in China. "Bar fights" simply don't happen.). So not only do you see a lot of blacks, whites, and shades of grey, but a lot of the furniture is clear glass or Lucite or similar materials.
picture courtesy 14 YA, a Chinese interior design company.
One of the goals of a modern Chinese interior decorator is to create openness and space. But they don't do it with curves, the way you might find in a circa 1970s house in Los Angeles or Topanga Canyon. They create flow by using straight lines and sharp edges that lead the eye to an infinite point - usually a window, but sometimes a television or an opening into another room.
However, modern Chinese decorating makes good use of colorful accents - intricate cloisonne vases, oil hangings or scrolls, or cinnabar plates. They use these as anchor points to "open the room along the folds" as it were. The colorful anchor points outline the room - they place them on side tables, end tables, and shelves set into the wall. There is an interesting company that does Chinese oil hangings and custom Chinese calligraphy - you can have anything you want translated and done in Classical Chinese calligraphy.
And the cloisonnes and cinnabar plates and accents you can get from us. They really work wonders to open up a room and add color. The modern Chinese view a room as a clean clear canvas, which they add greys and a few splashes of color to set the borders and boundaries. It's an interesting style based in the Chinese ideals of discipline, grace, and delicate strength.
7. Qing GuangXu five principles hat hanger by Xuepeng Liu & Dave Berlin, March 2010
Chinese culture is often subtle if not mysterious to westerners. A lot of social rules are implied and not explicit, and are symbolized in arts, literature and folk customs. For example, bright golden yellow symbolizes the imperial authority, dragons symbolize power, fish symbolize prosperity since the pronunciation of the word "fish" is close to the word for abundance. Pigs symbolize wealth since they were traded as rare merchandise in ancient times (for a variety of geographic reasons, pig and hog farming is not easy in China) etc.
The antique piece we are looking at here is a late Qing dynasty hat hanger. It's made of white porcelain. The hat hanger is a perfect cylinder with hollowed core. Middle and upper class men in Qing dynasty open wore a hat shaped like a hemisphere in cold weather. The hat hangers were usually placed in the foyer of the house so hats could be left on them while men were indoors.
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These are pictures of the front view and inside of the hat hanger.
This particular hat hanger is 11.6 inches high. The outside diameter is 4.72 inch. Since it's hollow on the inside, it can be used in modern days as a flower vase. The outside wall of the hanger is painted with Fencai. Fencai is a type of vibrant, richly colored pigments that form translucent, hard enamels after firing.
Hat hangers were first made in the mid 19th century. They became one of the most important dowry items when women married and left their father's homes. Hat hangers were owned by members of most social classes, since they were not very expensive to own. When you hold one in your hand and look at it, you get a glimpse of 150 years of folk cultures in China.
"Lun" in Chinese stands for principles, especially when it comes to relationships between people. In China, we say that there are five different kinds
of basic relationships between people.
1. The relationship between the emperor and his subordinates
2. The relationship between father and son
3. The relationship between husband and wife
4. The relationship between brothers
5. The relationship between friends
Meng Zi, an ancient scholar whose ideas were adopted and used by the Chinese rulers taught the five principles as below
1. the subordinates should always assist and obey the emperors2. father and son haved a natural responsibility to care for each other
3. husband and wife should care and respect each other but take different responsibilities in the family, the husband deals with the outside world and financial issues, the wife takes care of the household
4. brothers should watch out for each other and fight shoulder to shoulder against outsiders
5. friends should trust each other and be honest with each other
Ancient Chinese culture uses five species of birds to symbolize these five principles. These five principles were the basis of the moral standards promoted by ancient rulers and followed by people. People could find themselves in real trouble if they chose not to follow these standards.
This is a picture of a wagtail, which symbolizes brotherhood.
This is a picture of a yellow lark, which symbolizes friendships.
This is a picture of a duck, a pair of ducks symbolizes husband and wife.
This is a picture of a phoenix, which symbolizes the emperor and his subordinates; and a white crane, which symbolizes father and son.
The hat hanger has all of these birds painted around its outside wall. The paintings serve as a reminder to the viewers that they should always follow these five principles when interacting with other people in society.
It was at times a burden or invisible cage for people living in the old times--they had no freedom to follow their hearts; they had to follow these moral standards. But they were the perfect devices for the emperors to use to set up a functional society. These principles helped the imperial emperors govern. In modern China, these principles have been long abandoned and nobody is bond to follow them anymore.
6. Antique snuff bottles in Forbidden City - March 2010
Snuff bottles were used in China after tobacco came to Beijing in the 16th century. A snuff or medicinal bottle is a small bottle, usually carved out of lapis lazuli, jade, agate, crystal or made out of painted glass, used to carry one's personal supply of snuff. In 16th century China, tobacco was believed to have medicinal properties--it was considered to be good for colds, grippes, and disorders of the digestive and nervous system. It was also used to increase sexual potency.
Snuff became a part of Chinese high society, and business deals were often sealed with a pinch of it, much the same way businessmen today will take shots of aquavit to seal a deal. It was offered to guests when they entered your home, and when you met friends on the streets. To offer a pinch of snuff was to accept another person as a friend, to show bonhomie, and to improve feelings of general companionship. It was the hail-fellow-well-met of its era.
Snuff bottles could be very basic, but they also could be stunning to look at. The best glass snuff bottles had a kind of tactile feeling to them, a smoothness--the material almost felt soft and satiny. In addition to snuff bottles made from precious stones, China also produced the famous inside painted snuff bottles --where the artist has carefully inserted a very tiny, delicate brush into the neck of the bottle and painted the inside. This work is painstaking, exacting --it requires a tremendous amount of patience and dedication. Often, the crafters of modern snuff bottles will wear a loupe over their eyes to see their work.
The forbidden city has an excellent collection of Qing snuff bottles that belonged to members of the imperial families. These snuff bottles are of the best quality -- made of precious materials, designed by highly acclaimed artists and carved or painted by the most skilled artisans. Some of these snuff bottles are available to the public in forbidden city's treasure exhibit. Below are pictures taken from this exhibit.
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In the photos above, the bottles are made of crystal, amethyst, gum copal and amber. Collection of Palace Museum, Beijing, China.
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In the photos above, the bottles are made of tourmaline, lapiz lazuli, malachite, coral and agate. Collection of Palace Museum, Beijing, China.
The Palace Museum has an excellent website with descriptions of its treasure collections. Click here to read more, Official Palace Museum's snuff bottle collection and other palace paraphernalia.
Below is an antique inside painted snuff bottle from the collection of Beijing Capital Museum. It's not as lavish as those ones belonged to the imperial families but it's more artistic. It was a companion bottle to a Qing dynasty scholar in the 1700s.
5. The Dao De Ching - March 2010
The Dao De Ching is reputed to be the teachings of a man named "Lao Tse". It was first written down by someone purporting to be him about two hundred years after he allegedly lived, in 300 BC or thereabouts.
The Dao De Ching is the teaching of a path, or a "way" that requires that people live in harmony with the natural order of the universe. Lao Tse, a librarian in the court of the Emperor, developed the idea of "wu wei" or "do not do". Lao Tse believed that the Universe had a certain order, and to take direct action invariably ran someone up against the order of the Universe.
A good way to Westernize this concept is to say that Lao Tse believed that the Universe "wanted" something and the best thing to do was go along with it. In modern American terms, minus the multileveled and layered subtexts rendered in the original classical Chinese of the written Dao texts, we say that "God is trying to tell me something..." or "I guess it wasn't meant to be." Lao Tse believed that the thing for people to do was to learn experimentally what was meant to be or what the Universe was trying to tell them, and then go in harmony with it.
The Dao De Ching is written in classical Chinese calligraphy and is difficult to translate into English--most modern Chinese do not have the necessary depth of background in the classical Chinese literature canon. Since the Dao De Ching makes a lot of allusions to this canon of literature--which any educated noble Chinese of Lao Tse's time would have known--it is hard for both modern Chinese and Westerners to translate. Also, often modern Chinese will know the modern meanings of certain characters but not the ancient meanings, which may be only distantly related or have much subtler shades of meaning.
The Dao De Ching is divided into two parts: The Dao Ching and the De Ching. The earliest known copy was written on bamboo slips and was found on an archaeological dig at Guodian, near the old Chu capital in modern day Hubei province.
You can see the photographed Guoding Laozi with translation here.
When the Guoding Laozi (the Dao De Ching was originally called the Laozi) was discovered in a tomb in 1993, it was called " ...like the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls," by Tu Weiming, director of the Harvard Yenching Institute. The Guoding Laozi was discovered in what was believed to be a tomb of a tutor of a noble prince, Crown Prince Heng, who became the Chu king Qingxiang, ruling from the capital, Ying. The slips contained, among other writings, 24 chapters of the current Dao De Ching and 8 chapters that contain parts of the modern text.
Included below are two photographs of a copy of the Dao De Ching from the 12th Century, copied during the Yuan Dynasty.
This is a photo of the very beginning of the Dao Ching.
This is a photo of the end of the Dao Ching.
Notice in these two photos the red characters made by the seals of the scholars who copied and constructed the books. The seals were a kind of signature, much like an e-mail signature line today.
4. Buddha head made of elephant bone in East Han dynasty - Feb. 2010
Buddhism originated in India in 5th century BC. It was essentially the teachings of the Prince Siddhartha Guatama, who traveled throughout the Ganges River plain in India, spreading his ideas that a higher state of existence could be achieved by meditation, the proper ordering of one's karma, and a "Middle Way"--neither completely renouncing the world nor living in it materially to excess.
Buddhism spread East from India to China during the East Han dynasty (25-200 AD). Early on in the East Han dynasty, Buddha statues made in China imitated the style of Indian Buddhas. Statues and other works of art depicting the Buddha did not differ much between China and India.
It was not until the Wei Jin period (A.D. 220-420) that Buddha art evolved in China to reflect the characteristics specific to Chinese culture and Chinese Buddhism.
This carving was done using the technique called "Han Eight Cuts" or "Cut Eight Times".
Han Eight Cuts was a technique used in jade caring that was invented during the Han dynasty. Artists during the Han dynasty tended to emphasize an object's shape much more than its texture. They didn't worry so much about making edges and curves smooth and surfaces flat and smooth. Eight Cuts would form the main outline of a jade object with eight simple strokes of a knife. The idea is similar to sketching the outline of an object with a few lines in a graphite drawing.
Only the greatest most skilled artisans with the best training and the deepest spirit were able to carve an object with this technique. Their artwork is considered priceless and very hard to find.
This particular Buddha's head carving is in the collection of My Crystal Bridge Arts and Crafts co-founder Xuepeng Liu's. This head was carved of elephant bone--from the throat of an elephant--during the East Han dynasty. The material was a piece of bone from the throat of an elephant. It was carved more than 2000 years ago and is already fossilized. The yellowed bone has become hard and has an oily look and feel from 2000 years of human handling. The carving is vivid and is fluently done--it has a good flow to it--to reflect the deep influence Buddhism had on people's thinking at the time.
There are three smaller sitting Buddhas on the crown of the Buddha's head. These smaller Buddhas' faces were carved using the Han eight cuts technique. These eight brief carvings outlined the Buddhas' facial features. Also, since these smaller Buddhas are not the center of the object, the simple carvings pushed them to the background to leave the focal point to the actual Buddha head.
This Buddha head was something an ancient monk carried with him when traveling, it's also called a companion Buddha. The Buddha head came to East Han's territory with this ancient monk and stayed to today for us to appreciate it.
The Buddha head is about 4 inch high and weighs about 4 oz. It's located in Beijing, China.
Disclaimer: This particular antique is not available for sale. It is presented here purely for educational and informational purposes. Chinese law prohibits the sale of Chinese antiques made prior to the 1840s outside of China.
3. Visit to a cloisonne workshop in suburb Beijing - Jan. 2010
During my recent trip to Beijing, I had the chance to visit a cloisonne workshop for the first time in my life.
My brother and I drove to a suburb one hour from Beijing in Hebei province. The day was a sunny and pleasant winter day, the kind of day when the warm sun shines on you and makes you feel warm inside, even in the cold air. We arrived in town and were greeted by the manager in the town center. We followed his car to the workshop.
The manager and his staff took us around the showroom, obviously proud of what he had to sell. Afterwards, we got a special treat - a tour of the workshop itself. I was so exicted. I have been selling cloisonne wares for years, and I have always wondered how they are made. I was looking forward to seeing it with my own eyes. I was given permission to take pictures also.
The manager led us to a huge sun lit room with a very high ceiling. My eyes caught a pile of reddish brass sheets along the wall. These brass sheets are the basic material for the body of almost all Chinese cloisonne crafts.
The manager told us that Chinese cloisonnes were made mainly from brass or copper. He said the Japanese sometimes uses silver. He explained that the brass sheets are soldered and banged on pre-made solid metal molds to form the vase shapes. The following picture shows the workstation for soldering and shaping the metal sheets into vases.
A basket of brass bottom rims made from molds.
A workstation to fit rims onto bodies.
Finished bodies waiting for wiring in the yard.
After the vases are formed, they are wired. The wiring room was also bright with sun light and there were long, wide work benches lined up from one end of the room to the other. There were a dozen artisans (mostly females due to the huge amount of patience needed to work in this labor intensive trade) hunched over their vases, working carefully and methodically, wiring the vases. My brother and I were amazed by what we saw.
At the far end, one of the women was transferring a design from a picture painted on a piece of paper to the brass body with black ink. On our side of the bench, another worker was gluing brass wires along the design lines to form cells. These cells are the "cloisonne" - "cells" in French. The multicolored enamel pastes are laid into the cells and then the entire vase or trinket box or what have you is fired in a kiln, baking the enamel on. This process is repeated two or three times until the enamel is thick and hard.
Brass stripes. They are actually 6 stripes stacked together. These stripes are shaped to their designed curves in stacks to increase productivity.
Gluing the brass stripes onto the body. Once glued onto the body, the stripes form compartments or cells amongst themselves. These cells will be filled with enamel later on.
Completely wired bodies.
A stack of bowls with different colored enamel pastes in them. The enamel pastes are used to fill the cells (cloisonne in French) on the body.
A worker applying enamels into the cells.
Once the enamels are applied, the vases are ready for firing. The firing temperature is about 2000 degrees Celsius. The enamels melt at this temperature and fuse onto the brass body and compartment walls. A total of three firings are required for each object. Below is a picture of the firing kiln.
After each firing, the enamels shrink so more applications are needed. Below is a picture of some vases after the first firing.
After three firings, the cloisonne wares are polished on a rotating shaft with soft sandy stones. A fully polished cloisonne vase has a very smooth and shiny surface. Once polished, the vases are usually gilded with gold to make the divisions between colors stand out. Below is a picture of a pile of finished vases.
The tour took about half an hour. My brother and I had tea and thanked our hosts for their hospitality. Also we told them our intentions to possibly buy from them in the future. Now I just need to come up with some custom designs for our products. I have a few good ideas...
2. Growing up in Beijing - July 2009
Growing up in Beijing is like growing up in NYC - you are part of something grand but you are not, unless you are the heir of well heeled bankers.
I and my brother was born to a lower middle class family in the 1970s. My childhood was mostly simple and happy. I enjoyed the few toys
my parents were able to buy and the companies of similar aged kids living in the same narrow alley.
Since ever in my childhood, I was told all kinds of stories about old royal families who started to live
in Beijing since the Yuan dynasty in the 1400s. These emperors and empresses made Beijing grand and made the Beijing people grand by living
under their feet.
School for children in China is tough because there is tremendous competition - the population is huge - and education is the only way for most people to live a decent life as an adult. School was particularly difficult for me and my brother because my mother was an elementary school teacher. I had a lot of homework to do after school and on weekends. I always felt that I had to work twice as hard as everyone else to get a little bit ahead.
But there are advantages to having the teacher live in your home, and one of them is that if it's midnight and you don't understand something you are studying,
you can ask her. Thanks to my mom, I was able to stay top ranked in my classes all the way to college.
In between midterms and final terms, I spent most of my free time wandering up and down the city to explore the many museums and historical exhibits such as the natural science museum, the forbidden city, the summer palace, the North Sea Park, the Great Wall and Temple of Heaven. I have seen photographs of the Great Wall taken from space and it always amazed me that men had built it, men with two hands and two legs and a human spirit - and yet you could see it from space. I always thought about what mankind could do if he really decided he wanted to do it, if he had the will to do it, one brick at a time.
I also spent whole days in the Forbidden City wandering around until the guards chased me out. I would stand only a few feet away from artifacts that were thousands of years old, created by the advanced ancient civilizations that were my forebears and my linesmen. These treasures were made of cloisonne, jade, gold, brass or wood. I wondered often how on earth those ancient craftsmen could create such miracles without any precision tools, in awe of the patience of these artists, the care they took in the act of creation, and the ecstasy they felt that must have been so strong that they were willing to work their entire lives just to get it. I thought a lot about the emperors and empresses who lived their charmed lives by squeezing the last drop of blood out of the people they ruled.
My favorite place to hang out in Beijing was the banks along the moat surrounding the four walls of the forbidden city. In springtime, I would spend many afternoons sitting on the
cool stone steps leading to the water, looking at the watchtowers where the walls joined. I would think about how many people lived and died inside these walls, never thinking about
what lay outside, their lives and existences lived in the same places, year after year, day after day.. These people's lives were granted by the emperors and could be taken away at
the whim of the emperors. The emperors grew great and strong because of this intense power, this absolute authority. They worried about nothing, and they had time to enjoy the great
artworks their subjects created for them.
The Chinese feudal society finally came to an end through decade long revolution in 1911. The royal family was eventually driven out of forbidden city. Even though the emperors are
long gone, the grandness they built in Beijing lingers in the air. If you walk in Beijing today, you can still feel the care free atmosphere demonstrated by people walking their birds
in the morning, playing chess on a stone table in the park or casually chatting in the middle of the street. Beijingers are never in a rush. We feel that the hustle and bustle of life
can wait. We savor every second and enjoy the here and now.
Sometimes, when I was working in NYC, I'd walk in Central Park on a Saturday morning. The food vendors selling hot dogs, the portrait artist busy drawing or hustling to get $20 commissions, the young kids playing in the fountain and the guy running along aside his dog reminds me so much of Beijing, of Beijing's grandness, which draws me back every year.
1. In search of mineral crystals in western China - May 2009
By Xuepeng Liu, May 2009
It was a warm early summer in Beijing when my friend Lee and I decided to start our journey to western China's Sichuan province to search and stock up on mineral crystals. Western China is crisscrossed with high mountain ranges. The most well known of these is the Himalayas, but there are many. Beryl and rock crystals grow in abundance in the mountain caves of Western China - they are usually found in the caverns above 4200 meters (around fifteen thousand feet, or just under half the height of Mount Everest). We are determined to reach the source of these crystals.
We hopped in our 10 year old Cherokee jeep and started our 2000 mile journey across China. After 3 days of rutted, flooded roads, detours, washed out bridges, and lungfuls of air thickened by black coal dust, we finally crossed the province border. People walking along the side of the road looked at us curiously, and breathing gets harder as the air gets thinner. I get an odd feeling of jamais vu-a sense that I have never been here before, although I know I have. The effect is disquieting, and it plays on my nerves, making me edgy and a little snappish.
We reached the base camp at Xue Bao Ding mountain. We are about 9000 feet above sea level and the dusk is falling - the lowlight is coming. We set up camp among five or six other tents
already pitched. We locate a depression in the rocks. The rocks look secure and the ditch will serve to break some of the bitter, frigid wind. It took the two of us four
hours to set up our single tent, but now we will have a temporary home. We'll be spending the next week in these mountains.
The next morning when we wake up, our tent is all covered in snow. I am freezing from inside out - the cold rips through me, cutting and burning. I wait eagerly for the coming
of the sun.
We wolf down breakfast, pack our supplies and follow behind our guide who knows where the caves are. The guide is a local guy in his thirties. His skin is thick and brown
from the weather and sun. His arms are knotted like tree trunks of solid muscle - his forearms are as hard as rocks and as big around as my calves. He speaks almost not at all
but knows the mountains well enough to navigate them in his sleep. The air is getting thinner and our guide has to wait for us from time to time. After three hours of solid climbing,
our guide finally said, "We are here, you can see the caves up there."
We are in a low and narrow cave formed by rock movements that created fissures in the earth. The cracks are big enough for people to walk in. Underneath the earth and rocks, where
the temperature and pressure is high enough, the crystals will form. Later rock movements bring these crystals to the surface where curious people like us came into the caves and
discovered them.
Once inside the cave, we turn on our flashlights and start looking for crystals. They are not in the obvious opens. We have to look hard, behind and under other rocks. The cave is deep and dark. I can hear the fragile, thunderous echo of my own breathing. Thanks to our guide's experience, we find our first beryl crystal specimen underneath another rock. It takes quite some effort to break it off the rock bed. I can't see clearly what it looks like under the dim flash light. We keep searching and find two more.
Finally we get out of the cave, I hold the crystals in my own hands. My heart races like the heart of a rabbit when I lay my eyes on them. These beryl crystals look raw and natural. The crystals are clear like the water from a spring. The afternoon sunshine shoots through them and refracts along the edges. I look deep inside the crystals; it seems like it contains all of the colors in a rainbow, and some, I almost think, from outside of one.
We kept going back to the caves for the next week and collected more crystals. Our guide told us that there was a town called PingWu at the foot of
mountains. People in the town mine these crystals and we should find more there.
We left the base camp a week later and came into PingWu town. There are a lot merchants selling these crystals in the markets. We bought enough to load our Jeep with them, so many that the extra weight provided good traction for the car on the journey home It's much easier this way to stock up but the experience of discovering them ourselves is priceless. I promise myself that I will soon be back to PingWu - and that someday, I will return to the dark caves in the mountains.