Prof. Lothar von Falkenhausen 讲座英文稿：西周晚期到春秋時期青銅器的文化作用

Lecture Cycle: Chinese Bronzes, 850-400 BC: Issues in Interpretation Prof. Lothar von Falkenhausen This cycle of lectures addressed the development of Chinese bronzes from what earlier scholarship referred to as the “Middle Zhou transformation” to the beginnings of the Warring States period. These four-and-a-half centuries saw two major bouts of stylistic and typological transformation: the Late Western Zhou Ritual Reform about 850 BC, rightly emphasized in the work of Jessica Rawson since the 1980s, and the Middle Springs and Autumns Ritual Restructuring, first identified by Lothar von Falkenhausen building on previous observations by Li Ling and other scholars. One main emphasis in this cycle of lectures is to introduce the second of these transformations, which had been little noticed previously. Lectures 2 and 3 were therefore devoted to the discussion of the Middle Springs and Autumns Ritual Restructuring and its significance. By way of an introduction, the first lecture discussed the Late Western Zhou Ritual Reform, and the concluding fourth lectures presented a more general narrative of relevant art-historical changes during the late Bronze Age. (1) From the Late Western Zhou Ritual Reform to the end of the Early Springs and Autumns Period The first lecture began by describing the major archaeological components of the Late Western Zhou Ritual Reform: changes in vessel typology, intimating new ritual usages; changes in vessel assemblages, manifesting the standardization of social ranks within the élite stratum of society during that time; changes in vessel ornamentation, probably showing changes in the religious significance of the motifs; and the invention of tonally sophisticated sets of chime-bells, indicating an increasing elaboration of the performance aspects of ritual. There followed considerations of the date of the Reform, its circumstances, and its probable nature. Briefly stated, it seems likely that the Reform, though emanating from gradual developments over the course of the tenth and ninth centuries BC, was a one-time event that occurred about the middle of the ninth century; and it seems almost certain that it was part of a comprehensive reform of the institutions of the Zhou state. The motivation for such a reform probably lay in the increasing socio-political complexity of the Zhou élite, which required a new degree of systematization. The new system was remarkable for its homogeneity as well as for a high degree of flexibility. The reform resulted in the imposition of new types of bronze vessels forming sets of standardized numbers keyed to social rank. These new ritual standards remained in place with astonishingly little change for about 200 to 250 years after 850 BC, until the end of the Early Springs and Autumns period. Through archaeological finds one can trace their geographic distribution throughout north China and into the Middle Yangzi basin. There is some local variation, especially during the seventh century, when local workshops, e.g. in the Qin and Jin areas, put a new spin on Late Western Zhou-style ornaments, making them more complex as well as more playful. Much later texts reveal, moreover, that the graded sets of tripods and sixteen-part bell-chimes that were current during the crucial 200+-year time span following the Late Western Zhou Ritual Reform remained in historical memory as standards of reference of orthodox ritual thinkers, even though actual tripod and bell constellations changed greatly after ca. 600 BC. This may manifest the transformation of performance-based ritual into a system of philosophical thought, the centrality of which was emphasized from later Eastern Zhou times onward by the Confucian school. (2) The Middle Springs and Autumns Period Ritual Restructuring I: Zheng and North-Central China The second lecture began with general remarks on the Middle Springs and Autumns Ritual Restructuring. After ca. 600 BC, the standard vessel sets instituted by the Late Western Zhou Ritual Reform are encountered only in contexts associated with members of the highest élite, whereas ordinary bronze-owning aristocrats handled more modest sets of bronzes of new types that differ somewhat from region to region. Bronze assemblages thus became bifurcated into what may be provisionally called the Special Assemblage--vessels related to the earlier types, presumably manifesting the continued performance of the Late Western Zhou-type rituals--and the Ordinary Assemblage, indicating the performance of new, less elaborate, and locally distinctive rituals. Individuals of the highest aristocratic ranks are buried with both kinds of assemblages and thus presumably performed both kinds of ritual, whereas lower-ranking individuals were limited to rituals involving Ordinary Assemblage vessels. This restructuring probably reflects the increasing complexity of Zhou lineage organization after the turn of the sixth century BC, which is also amply manifest in the Zuo zhuan and other written sources; it illustrates a split within the élite stratum of Eastern Zhou society, pitting the increasingly powerful ruling families against the lower élite as two distinct classes. Unlike the Late Western Zhou Ritual Reform, the Middle Springs and Autumns Ritual Restructuring probably was not a one-time concerted event, but developed gradually and distinctively in different parts of Eastern Zhou China. The reminder of this lecture as well as the following lecture presented a series of case studies to illustrate the extent of regional variation. The best evidence for the Middle Springs and Autumns Ritual Restructuring available today comes from the area of Xinzheng, the capital of the ancient polity of Zheng. Unusually, Xinzheng has yielded a number of sacrificial pits of Middle to Late Springs and Autumns-period date in which archaistically-ornamented Special Assemblage vessels and bells are buried by themselves, without Ordinary Assemblage bronzes, attesting the autonomous ritual use of the Special Assemblage. Tombs of low-ranking aristocrats in the Xinzheng region, on the other hand, contain only vessels of what has been called the “Standard Zheng Set”--vessels of new types that were locally developed from originally utilitarian (i.e., non-ritual) ceramic prototypes, featuring “modern”-looking ornamentation. Both types of vessels likely occurred together in the large tomb (or tombs) of a member (or members) of the ruling family of Zheng that were unearthed in 1923, unfortunately without the apport of properly trained archaeologists (the exact nature of that assemblage continues to pose some problems). The funerary evidence now available makes it possible to trace how the new types of vessels came into use in Zheng: they originated as non-standard additions (presumably unregulated by the sumptuary rules enacted since the Late Western Zhou Ritual Reform) to the contents of tombs belonging to members of what had been the lowest rank in the traditional hierarchy of bronze-owners; later on, the use of such vessels became common throughout the bronze-using élite. Bell-chimes were likely, at least through the end of the Springs and Autumns period, part of the Special Assemblage. Parenthetically, the evidence now available allows the decisive refutation of the oft-repeated idea that bronzes of “Zheng style” came into being as a result of influence from Chu; if there was any influence, it more likely went into the opposite direction. The lecture concluded with brief remarks on attestations of the Middle Springs and Autumns Ritual Restructuring in other parts of North-Central China, including Wei (Liulige, Hui Xian [Henan]), Jin (Jinshengcun, Taiyuan [Shanxi] et al.), Qi (individual vessels only), and Yan (later reflections in Tomb 16 at Yan Xiadu, Yi Xian [Hebei]). (3) The Middle Springs and Autumns Period Ritual Restructuring II: Chu and Qin The third lecture continued the discussion of the bifurcated bronze assemblages that became customary after the Middle Springs and Autumns period. The southern kingdom of Chu offers particularly rich materials of this sort, covering both the Springs and Autumns and the Warring States period and continuing through the very end of the Warring States, when many other regions (such as Qin and Qi) had long abandoned any notion of enacting the sumptuary standards first promulgated through the Late Western Zhou Ritual Reform. It was in Chu-related tombs of high-ranking individuals that the bifurcation of vessel assemblages can be most clearly observed; indeed, Chu, rather than being culturally distinct from the rest of Eastern Zhou China, furnishes a particularly typical instantiation of Zhou-wide cultural trends. To compensate for the lack, so far, of Springs and Autumns-period bronze assemblages from Chu royal tombs, the lecture presented two tombs of rulers allied with Chu, Marquis Shen of Cai and Marquis Yi of Zeng; moreover, finds from the necropolis of the ministerial Yuan/Wei lineage at Xichuan (Henan) were discussed at some detail. In some Warring States-period Chu tombs (but not those of the very highest ranks, such as the Late Warring States-period Chu royal tomb at Zhujiaji, Changfeng [Anhui]), the Special Assemblage vessels were not usable vessels but cheaper imitations (mingqi), intimating that, at certain rank levels, the Late Western Zhou-derived rituals had become a matter of memory and display rather than actual performance. Some tombs of even lower ranks--tombs that do not even contain full sets of Ordinary Assemblage bronzes--also contain individual vessels (usually mingqi) that allude to the Special Assemblage; these may be indirect indication of an increasing tendency toward the contemplation of ritual values as an intellectual exercise divorced from actual performance. Using the famous bell-chimes from the tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng as an example, the lecture briefly discussed the role of bell-chimes in ritual-bronze assemblages in the wake of the Middle Springs and Autumns Ritual Restructuring, emphasizing that their distribution patterns--in spite of greatly increased complexity--derive directly from the standard setsused since the Late Western Zhou Ritual Reform. The lecture went on to discuss the case of Qin--the only one among the major Eastern Zhou polity where there is no evidence indicating that a ritual restructuring occurred in the Middle Springs and Autumns period. Instead, we find the standard bronze assemblages of the Late Western Zhou Ritual Reform continuing in use through the mid-fourth century BC, when they presumably were rendered meaningless by Shang Yang’s reforms. Over time, however, most funerary bronzes became reduced in size, becoming mingqi; increasingly, bronzes are replaced by mingqi made of ceramics (a development that is also seen elsewhere in Eastern Zhou China during the Warring States period, but which begins particularly early in Qin). These trends in all likelihood bespeak changes in the religious ideas concerning death and the afterlife, possibly triggered by contact with areas further to the West. One may speculate that the absence, in Qin, of a bifurcation of bronze assemblages emanates from a deliberate cultural conservatism that meshed with Qin’s well-documented desire to supplant the Zhou as rulers of the realm; nevertheless, tomb sizes can serve as a reliable archaeological indicator that in Qin, the social chasm between the ruling family and the ordinary élite was at least as great as, if not greater than, in those polities where the Restructuring can be observed. Shang Yang’s reforms removed the social basis for the sumptuary distinctions that had heretofore been expressed through bronze-vessel sets; henceforth, bronze vessels in Qin seem to have functioned principally as luxurious household furnishings. (4) The Ornamentation of Eastern Zhou Bronzes in Context: Ornamentalism, Archaism, and Incipient Pictorialism Rather than delivering a systematic, textbook-style account of the esthetic tendencies in Zhou-period art, this final lecture took the form of a loose sequence of étincelles--sundry and in some cases provocative ideas intending open up unfamiliar perspectives while also highlighting the art-historical importance of the Late Western Zhou Ritual Reform and the Middle Springs and Autumns Ritual Restructuring. The lecture began by highlighting the importance of animal-shaped vessels as full manifestations of guiding iconographic ideas, of which the surface designs seen on the sacrificial vessels are merely a abbreviated version. It is significant that the tradition of making such animal-shaped vessels continued throughout the Shang and Zhou periods, although their role and function seem to have changed as the Late Western Zhou Ritual Reform triggered the emergence of vessels of non-ritual function alongside the traditional ritual vessels. These high-end playthings (by no means all of animal shape) tend to carry adventurous and sometimes playful and even humorous ornamentation, thereby defining the forefront of artistic developments from the eighth century BC onward. Crucially, bronze, though still used, inter alia, for ritual vessels, ceased to be an inherently sacred material; this and the transformation of the religiously-charged hieratic animal décor into pure ornament that occurred at the time of the Late Western Zhou Ritual Reform did a great deal to release artistic creativity. As is well known, the further development of bronze-making during Eastern Zhou times is marked by miniaturization of motifs and the impact of technical innovations including the use of pattern blocks and metal inlay. From a formal art-historical point of view, it is interesting, moreover, to observe the coexistence, on many vessels of this period, of the three major modes of figure representations known in early China: hieratic, ornamentalized, and in-action. But there is also a much-overlooked contrary tendency that needs to be balanced against the notion of rapid artistic change: the manifold attempts by Zhou bronze casters to forge explicit visual links to past tradition. The new vessel shapes and ornaments introduced through the Late Western Zhou Ritual Reform may themselves be a conscious archaistic attempt. Later, in Eastern Zhou art, we may distinguish four varieties of archaism: diacritic, commemorative, associative, and ludic. None of these necessarily aims at a wholesale return to the past (as implied by the Chinese term fuguzhuyi but they allude to themes (and, in some cases, actually extant objects) from earlier epochs (a more appropriate Chinese rendering of “Archaism” in such instances may be nigufeng). Some Late Warring States-period manifestations of “ludic archaism” may reveal the beginnings of an antiquarian (proto-archaeological) attitude that persisted in the early Imperial epoch, as shown by some recently found bronze vessels from Wang Mang’s reign. The decisive reorientation of artistic priorities at the time of the Late Western Zhou Ritual Reform also enabled, in the long run, the rise of a truly pictorial art. The forerunners of this mode of depiction can be identified in the sculptural appendages to non-ritual bronzes from the eighth and seventh centuries BC, which were followed by, e.g., the sculpturally rendered scene of musical performance seen in the “bronze house” excavated at Shaoxing. The ritual and battle scenes depicted on the well-known “pictorial bronzes” from the fifth century BC intimate an incipient abandonment of the long-standing taboo, within the Shang-Zhou tradition, vis-à-vis the figural representation of important persons and divinities (semi-anthropomorphic guardian deities are also depicted, e.g., in Chu lacquerwork). Such tendencies came to full fruition in early imperial times (e.g., in the wall paintings and terracotta-figure ensembles of Qin), but the decisive changes that resulted in the emergence of artists highly skilled in figural and scenic renderings appear to have taken place in the Warring States period. Finds from this epoch--e. g., Chu lacquerwork and silk paintings--attest experimentation with a variety of styles in figural renderings--some highly realistic, others deliberately vague--as well as, apparently, a wide range in the artistic abilities of artists. At Baoshan in the late fourth century BC, we see the earliest known example of what was to become the preferred style: a smooth, highly realistic manner prefiguring the work of later figure painters such as Gu Kaizhi. At the end of this discussion, it emerges that, while the Middle Springs and Autumns Ritual Restructuring was instrumental in launching the distinctive regional styles characteristic of later Eastern Zhou art, it was the Late Western Zhou Ritual Reform that was the seminal point of departure for virtually all the artistic innovations that occurred during the ensuing millennium. While the notion of the Middle Springs and Autumns Ritual Restructuring is helpful in untangling the complex bronze assemblages from the final centuries of the Chinese Bronze Age, it is the innovations of the Late Western Zhou Ritual Reform in the mid-ninth century BC that remained the (implicit and explicit) point of reference for later artists and, ultimately, enabled the genesis of an entirely new art--an art devoted to the mediation of narratives that enshrined cultural and ethical values. This development is, of course, inseparable from the intellectual developments that occurred from the mid-Eastern Zhou period onward.