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ASIAN ART NEWS
April 2007
-For this month item I have chosen the bronze BanChiang burial
artfacts from Thailand. Over the years I have collected some important
bronzes from that time and aria of which I would like to share some with
you.
As on
the plains, foreign intrusions into Ban Chiang's art had been in
the form of novel raw materials that were used in traditional ways. By
1500BC, however, there was a dramatic new technology as well: both
utilitarian objects and jewelery that had been made of stone, shell, or
bone began to be replaced in bronze and the new technology also led to new
designs. It has been ascertained how bronze first came to be manufactured
on the plateau. Tin and lead could be imported from the highlands that
surounded the area, and some scholars consider that their amalgamation
into bronze was due larlgely to the plateau people's exploiting local rich
resources' (Glover, 1999: 126).
A few
others see influence arriving from the west (White, 2000: 1093-4).
There was also a flourishing bronze casting industry in the lower Red
River region (bac Bo) in what is now northern Vietnam,
which in turn, was in contact with lingnan, in southwest China,
where magnificent Chinese Shang Dynasty bronzes were being produced
in the mid-second millennium BC. According to archeological research,
bronze castings at Ban Chiang began at about the same time
(Higam, 1996: 9-12,134,240-6,311-12). thus, the introduction of bronze
technology on the plateau from the north is also a possibility.
By
whatever means bronze casting reached Ban chiang, local aesthetic
preferences (as on the plains) were to persist. No contemporary bronzes
from China, northern Vietnam, or the west have been found in the
Songkhram area, and there is nothing to suggest foreign artistic (as
apposed to technological) influences. small clay figurines from Ban
Chiang as well as nearby Ban Na Di that include representations
of humans, deer, elephants, cattle, and perhaps water buffalo reflect an
interest in the local. As on the plains, Ban Chiang appears to have
celebrated its own craftsmanship and artistry. Remains of furnaces,
bivalve molds, and ingots all indicate local production, while tools of
the trade were sometimes buried with the artisans.
What
artistic innovation there was in the Songkhram area derived not
from the outside but from new possibilities that bronze casting provided.
Rather than adopt whatever foreign designs they may have had access to,
artisans elaborated upon the old. Bangles whose designs derived from
traditional bone and ivory examples were now embellished wit decorative
flanges, small nodules, and scallops. The larger surfaces that bronze made
possible provided flat surfaces that could be embellished with linear
designs of a new pottery design. For a short time during Ban Chiang's
middle yeras, large unadorned, carinated ceramic vessels with very thin
walls and a sleek sculptural elegance made their appearance. There are no
known prototypes for these vessels; rather, they appear to have been made
in segments that were pieced together in a procedure that is more typical
of metal work than potting.
What
is concidered the best of Ban Chiang's pottery and bronzes was
produced during the later three centuries of the first millennium BC. Some
iron tools appeared alongside bronze jewelery, and there were a few glass
beads of foreign manufacture. Innovative bronze technologies that required
intense heat and a high tin content were now used to produce
nontraditinal, highly ornamented bronzes such as toe and finger rings,
wire-like necklages, and bells. Surprisingly, however, these cultural
intrusions into the Songkhram area seem to have engendered not an
increase in artistic production, as one might have expected, but, rather,
Ban Chiang's demise.
Thai07124
Ban Chiang burial
bronze, consiting out of 47pieces
L 27.4cm - 10
3/4inch, Diam 10.3cm - 4inch Green Malachite oxidation patina with human
bones.
Thai07125
Ban Chiang burial
bronze, consiting out of 40pieces L 24.8cm - 9 3/4inch, Diam 9.3cm - 3
6/8inch Green Malachite oxidation patina with human bones.
Thai07126
Ban Chiang burial
bronze, consiting out of 28pieces L 20.4cm - 8 1/3inch, Diam 7.3cm - 2
7/8inch Green Malachite oxidation patina with human bones.
Thai07127
I dedicated myself
to do a defragmentation on this object and hope to be able to get it on
the June exhibition in brussels, consiting out of 40pieces, Diam from
8.7cm up to 5.2cm - from 3 1/2inch up to 2inch. Green Malachite oxidation
patina with human bones.
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