Advertisement
Published: November 1st 2006
Edit Blog Post
Happy Birthday, mom!!!
Hallowmas….as at least one Chinese bar advertises it. Today we headed to the Shanghai museum, which has 120,000 pieces of art in the collection with ancient Chinese bronze, ceramics, jade, coins and calligraphy and painting as its special features. Overall the Chinese bronze collection was both Scott’s and my favorite exhibit. Many of the bronzes were either food or wine vessels, in varying forms and shapes. The interesting part is that it can be a called a wine vessel but depending on its name, determined its function. Such as a Flower Zun, shaped like a flower it would be large or medium and have wine contained in it, while a Flower Gu, would have wine drunk from it, or a Flower Jue, would be a vessel that wine is poured from into a cup. The Bronze Age started in China in the 21st century BC and lasted 2000 years.
When I think of jade, I relate it to China. In touring this exhibit it makes me realize why. China started carving intricate designs in jade around the 31st century BC. Jade was used as burial objects, ceremonial objects, ritual implements, ornaments for wearing, decorative objects and daily utensils.
One burial object caught my attention…. a carved suckling pig was placed in the mouth of the deceased. Anyone know why? I have always associated the colors green and opaque and the variations in-between as being jade, but jade comes in many colors. There was green and opaque jade, but occasionally there were brown, cream, orange and yellow forms of jade.
In the Chinese ceramics exhibit I learned the difference between pottery and porcelain, which China is was famous for during the Ming and Qing dynasties. Pottery is ordinary clay with iron content higher than 3%, fired at less than 1000 degrees Celsius, and would have either a low-temperature glaze or non at all. Porcelain is porcelain stone and clay with less than 3% iron content, fired at above 1200 degrees Celsius, and was glazed at that temperature also. There was a piece of pottery from the period 6,000 to 5,200 BC. The first porcelain arrived in the Shang dynasty (16th-11th century BC), it was of low quality and called proto-porcelain. The Tang Dynasty (7th-8th century AD) featured polychrome-glazed pottery. Pottery pieces of all shapes were made with a variety of colors. Porcelain of good quality started during the Song
dynasty (10th-12th century AD). The five famous porcelain wares from the Song dynasty were Ru ware, Guan ware, Ge Ware, Ding ware and Jun ware. The Ming and Qing dynasty perfected the Underglaze and Overglaze painting, which is well known as the blue and white porcelain. Scott was disappointed that there were no huge Ming vases, which people always refer to, shown in the museum.
The sculpture exhibit was a great collection but not that exhilarating to me, since we have seen older and sometimes better objects at the temples and historical sites we have already visited. I also did not take many pictures, as Buddha is a major object to sculpt and I have had my fill of Buddha pictures for the moment.
The Chinese coin collection was very interesting. It showed the evolution of the need for coins during the bartering and exchange process. They estimate money started being used by the Chinese around 2,000 AD. Each dynasty would create their own form of coins during their reign. Also official coins changed often, since counterfeiting would occur. Funny even today, China has a major problem with counterfeiting. Each time a Renminbi over 20 is given, the cashier examines
it with scrutiny. The oldest coins on display were the ones shaped like production tools from the 8th century. I can not imagine having a pocket full of them. They were a couple inches long and looked heavy, it makes the Canadian Toonie look light.
After the museum we decided to walk down the Nanjing Road pedestrian walkway, which is a street closed to traffic. I must have said no or no thank you at least 200 times. The other 100 times I just ignored the person offering to sell me something, usually a watch, purse, shoe, roller skate, or food. I try to pretend to not hear them and keep walking but it is hard when they invade your personal space and thrust something in your face. It makes taking in the sites annoying. I really hate when they touch me, I need to learn how to say “Do not touch” in Chinese.
Tomorrow we are taking the train to Suzhou for the day.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.043s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 9; qc: 19; dbt: 0.0198s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb