4.  Silent Music: An Underground Orchestra of the Zhou-dynasty Marquis Yi of Zeng 曾候乙

Zhou dynasty c. 1050-256 BCE

Terms

mingqi 明器 :   bright objects, spirit objects

Tian 天:   “Heaven,” the all-powerful sky deity of the Zhou dynasty, replaced “di” 帝 of the Shang dynasty

Confucius 孔子 (551-479 BCE).

Li 禮 ritual, ceremony, and etiquette in canonical texts that govern all social interaction

Marquis Yi (died 433 BCE).

Zeng.   A state during the Warring States period located in modern-day Hubei province 湖北省 .

Objects

• Musicians, Chimes, and Bells .   Western Han dynasty 206 BCE-9 CE.   Painted earthenware.   Portland Art Museum.
• The Underground Orchestra in the tomb of the Marquis Yi of Zeng 曾候乙 (d. 433 BCE). Warring States Period.   Suizhou, Hebei Province. Dimensions:   69 x 55.5 feet.   Among musical instruments in tomb was a rack of 64 bronze bells. (fig. 3-1, 3-22, 3-24)
• lost-wax bronze casting:   A process of bronze casting that uses a wax positive model.   After being surrounded by clay, the wax is melted out, leaving an empty mold for the molten bronze to fill. (see fig. 3-15, 3-18, 3-19)
• Man and dragon. 4th-3rd century BCE. Silk painting, H:   14 1/4” (fig. 3-25)
• Chimes and Bells at the Forbidden City.   Qing dynasty (1644-1911), probably 18 th century.

Concept :   style , “ style art history,” “new formalism”

Heinrich Wölfflin, Principles of Art History (1915): style is “not the beauty of Leonardo but the element in which beauty becomes manifest.” (p. 13).

Texts

a) [Confucius' student] Zilu asked about serving the ghosts and spirits. The Master   said, “You are not yet able to serve people--how could you be able to serve ghosts and spirits?   Zilu added, “May I inquire about death?”   He was answered, “You do not understand life—how could you possibly understand death?” ( Analects , tr. Slingerland, 11.2)

b) Baxandall's definition of influence :   “…draw on, resort to, avail oneself of, appropriate from, have recourse to, adapt, misunderstand, refer to, pick up, take on, engage with, react to, quote, differentiate oneself from, assimilate oneself to, align oneself with, copy, address, paraphrase, absorb, make a variation on, revive, continue, remodel, ape, emulate, travesty, parody, extract from, distort, attend to, resist, simplify, reconstitute, elaborate on, develop, face up to, master, subvert, perpetuate, reduce, promote, respond to, transform, tackle.” (Baxandall, 59).

c) When we focus on… style, we can read an artifact like a [Han-dynasty tomb figure] as a direct record of the material demands of a particular interest group. (Powers, 43).

d) Music is joy, an emotion which man cannot help but feel at times.   Since man cannot help feeling joy, his joy must find an outlet in voice and an expression of movement.   The outcries and movements, the inner emotional changes which occasion them, must be given full expression in accordance with the way of man.   Man must have his joy, and joy must have its expression, but if that expression is not guided by the principles of the Way, then it will inevitably become disordered.   The former kings hate such disorder, and therefore they created the musical forms of the odes and hymns in order to guide it.… ( Hsun Tzu , tr. Watson, 112).

e) From wrangling [between men] comes disorder and from disorder comes exhaustion.   The ancient kings hated such disorder, and therefore they established ritual principles in order to curb it, to train men's desire and to provide for their satisfaction. ( Hsun Tzu , tr. Watson, 89).

f)   Mingqi embody interesting contradictions.   By copying objects made in more expensive materials such as bronze and lacquer, they made it possible for a great many more people to afford a symbolically more luxurious life than their means would otherwise permit, and indeed, minggqi utensils commonly appeared in modest tombs … Most important, perhaps, the idea of copying allowed the possibility of unlimited transfer of worldly properties to the afterlife and thus helped to ensure the deceased's well-being in the afterlife. (Xu, 14).

g)  …they [prescribe] extravagant burials and lengthy mourning periods, make extra layers of the inner and outer coffins, and an abundance of burial garments—sending off the dead as if they were [simply] moving their abode.   [The mourners] wailing and sobbing for three years, not getting up unless helped, and not taking walks without a cane; their ears hear nothing, and their eyes see nothing—this is sufficient to bring about the loss of the kingdom.   Furthermore, the [Ruists] sing to the accompaniment of strings and dance to the beat of drums, well practiced in the making of music—this is sufficient to bring about the loss of the kingdom. ( Mozi , tr. Cook, 9)

h) There was a retainer painting for the King of Ch'i [Qi], whom the King of Ch'i asked:   “What is the most difficult in painting?”   He replied:   “Dogs and horses are most difficult.”   “What is the easiest?”   He replied:   “Demons and goblins are easiest.   Since dogs and horses are things known by man, visible before the day through, they cannot be completely simulated and thus are difficult.   Demons and goblins are without form, and not visible before us, hence they are easy.” ( Han Feizi , Book 11, tr. Bush, 24)

i) For instance, artisan-painters dislike depicting dogs and horses, yet like to execute demons and goblins.   Truly, this is because substantial entities are difficult to form, while insubstantial counterfeits are inexhaustible. (Zhang Heng [78-139 CE] Memorial against superstition in augury , Hou Han shu , book 89, Zhang's bibliography, tr. Bush, 24).

j) “Ritual serves to some extent as a means of both heightening the differences between the ordinary and the strange and helping to resolve the inherent contradictions between the two.” (Blier, 304).

k) “…ritual performances propelled the human imagination beyond the here and now, implying both the operation of larger cycles of fate and a boundless, hence godlike, human capacity for perfection.” (Nylan, 169; my italics).

Bibliography

Baxandall, Michael. Patterns of Intention .   New Haven:   Yale, 1985.

Blier, Suzanne Preston.   “Ritual.” In Critical Terms for Art History . 2d ed.   Eds. Robert S. Nelson and Richard Shiff, 296-305.   Chicago:   University of Chicago Press, 1997, 2003.

Bush, Susan, and Hsio-yen Shih. Early Chinese Texts on Painting .   Harvard-Yenching Institute, 1985.

Cook, Scott. “Xun Zi on Ritual and Music,” Monumenta Serica 45 (1997): 1-38.

Hsün Tzu [Xunzi]. Hsün Tzu: Basic writings .   Trans. Burton Watson. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996.  

Nylan, Michael.   The Five “Confucian” Classics .   New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001.

Powers, Martin.   Pattern and Person:   Ornament, Society, and Self in Classical China .   Harvard East Asian Monographs 262.   Cambridge, MA and London:   Harvard University Press, 2006.

Stewart, Susan.   “On the Miniature.” In On Longing : Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection .   Durham and London:   Duke University Press, 1993.

Wölfflin, Henrich.   Principles of Art History:   The problem of development of style in later art .   Trans. M.D. Hottinger.   New York:   Dover Publications, 1915.

Xu, Jay.   “Introduction.” In Mysterious Spirits, Strange Beasts, Earthy Delights:   Early Chinese Art from the Arlene and Harold Schnitzer Collecti on.   Ed. Jenkins, Donald, 11-17.   Portland:   Portland Art Museum, 2005.