Nominal Things: Bronzes in the Making of Medieval China by Jeffrey Moser

Author:Jeffrey Moser [Moser, Jeffrey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ART000000 ART / General, ART019010 ART / Asian / Chinese, ART015070 ART / History / Medieval, LAN016000 LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / Semantics
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 2023-03-30T00:00:00+00:00

5

Nominal Empiricism

In the years following the correspondence between Ouyang Xiu and Liu Chang, the circle of those involved in the collecting of antiquities expanded. Records indicate that by the 1090s, at least forty literati, representing all major regions of the Song empire, were not only collecting antiquities, but actively deciphering their inscriptions, drawing pictures of them, and exchanging what they learned with one another.1 There were doubtless many others.

One of these collectors was the Hanlin academician Shen Gua (1031–1095). A polymath who kept careful notes of his observations of natural and man-made phenomena, Shen wrote on everything from engineering and finance to divination and painting.2 At one point in his career (the precise dates are uncertain), Shen traveled to the antiquities-rich region surrounding the former capital of Chang’an, where Liu Chang, a generation earlier, had commenced his collection and study of ancient bronzes. There he acquired a “an ancient bronze yellow yi vessel” (gu tong huang yi). Shen was familiar with the image of the yellow yi from the reconstructions of Nie Chongyi. But the bronze vessel in his hands did not look anything like the vessel in those pictures:

The “yellow yi” recorded in ritual books is decorated with the painted image of human eyes, which are called “yellow eyes.” When I was traveling in Guanzhong, I obtained an ancient bronze yellow yi which was completely different. It was incised with complex designs that, on the whole, resembled “twisted official script” (jiu zhuan shu) and the breaking waves painted on the panels of balustrades. Within these patterns were two eyes, like large slingshot pellets, bulging. Gleaming (huang huang), they were the so-called “yellow (huang) eyes.” Upon examining the design, it appeared to represent fangs and horns and a gaping maw. Perhaps one could say that “yellow eyes” refers to none other than this thing.3

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