commonly occurring on Yang Shao pottery as a main decorative motif is the spiral. Found also in later Chinese art, the spiral is known as the lei wen, or thunder pattern. Again, the character for thunder in archaic Chinese script resembles this spiral. Standing for thunder, storm, clouds, and rain, it also represents fertility.
Other basic, abstract figures used widely and bearing symbolic import in terms of fertility magic are the circle, which was also the early ideograph for the sun ; the triangle, resembling the female pubic region and common in many primitive cultures as a symbol of the Mother Goddess; the square, appearing with a cross inside as the archaic ideograph for a tilled field; and paired dots, thought to sometimes represent the visage of a primitive deity.
A more complex pattern, consisting of red bands flanked by small triangles, has the appearance of rows of teeth. Andersson has termed this the "death pattern," since neolithic vessels bearing this design have been found in China only in burial sites. When examining the elements of the death pattern, one is struck by the consistent use of the color red for this design. Red symbolized blood—hence life—in all primitive societies and usually can be presumed to have symbolic significance. Fertility deities were commonly painted red, and traces of red ochre are often found in burial sites. Red water, representing the essence of life, was believed by primitive man to confer immortality after death. This death pattern, composed of red bands symbolizing immortality and repeated triangles symbolizing fertility, in its linear, parallel arrangement, probably was meant to invoke new life in parallel continuity with the phenomenon of death.
Portrayals of the human figure or those of animals seem to have been comparatively rare in this primitive culture; however, both have occasionally been found in neolithic remains. The most remarkable are a number of pottery idols having human heads and star-shaped bases. Tears streaming down the cheeks indicate that they represent rain deities. Wavy parallel lines, triangles, and lozenges on their bases also suggest a connection with rain and fertility. Human figures having circles for heads, and faces with large eyes have also been found. Among animals represented, snakes, fish, and frogs are the most prevalent. Since, in later Chinese art, all are connected with the concepts of water and fertility, a close relation between these animals and the neolithic dependence upon the harvest can be inferred.
The third and last phase of Yang Shao pottery culture is usually called Ma Ch'ang, after the principal site where remains have been found. Probably representing a culture in transition from ceramic to bronze crafts and proper to the period from about 1700 to 1500 B.C., pottery of this order continued to be produced in Kansu well into historical times. Apparently deriving from the Pan-shan type of middle Yang Shao pottery, the vessels are coarser and the forms and designs are less attractive. The symbols are generally the same but have lost something of the earlier expressive power. Later phases of pottery culture followed this last phase of the Yang Shao, but these are uninteresting as art works. The forms of these wares are weak. The painted designs are carelessly executed and no longer related to surface contours. Certainly by this time the superior bronze culture of the Shang dynasty had displaced neolithic ceramic culture in all but the outlying backward regions.
Less ancient than the Yang Shao painted red ware but also artistically important, a second genre of neolithic pottery was contemporary with the last phase of Yang Shao. Called Lung-shan after the site in Shantung where the first examples were found, it was first thought to be of a purely local culture. In recent years, however, discoveries in Honan and other provinces support the belief that this pottery was made throughout northern China from about 1700 B.C. until the rise of Shang culture around 1500 B.C. This pottery is most commonly a grey ware, sometimes a black ware, decorated with comb marks, incised patterns, or impressed designs instead of painted designs. Among a great variety of shapes, some anticipate those of later Chinese art such as the li tripod, the tsun goblet, the tou fruit stand, and the ting. The silhouettes of Lung-shan vessels are sharper and more linear than those of the Yang Shao. Above all, these wares are more technically advanced, having been formed on the fully developed potter's wheel and fired in a process involving oxidation and reduction.
Especially fine are the black wares. Thin-walled and of a lustrous, jet-black color, these vessels can be very beautiful. Here again, as in the case of the Yang Shao red ware, there are close parallels with a similar black ware made in Iran at an earlier date, around 2000 B.C. in this case.
The grey pottery has been found at the same sites as has the black and even more extensively in northern China. Chêng Tê-k'un has suggested that they represent separate cultures. Others believe the grey to be merely a more common, ordinary form from a single pottery culture.
In either case, these black and grey wares provide a direct transition between late neolithic and historical times in terms of both design and decoration, implying a direct connection between the peoples of the prehistoric and historic eras. Some scholars have equated the Lung-shan culture with the earliest historical Chinese dynasty, the Hsia, which is supposed to have immediately preceded the Shang. But, pending confirmation by further archaeological discovery, this identification can only be speculative, or tentative at best.
Although pottery was the dominant art in prehistoric China, as in other neolithic cultures, other artistic media were widely used: stone, bone, wood, and precious stones such as turquoise and jade. The jade rings, pendants, and ritual implements are most remarkable from both the aesthetic and the technical points of view. Here, again, the continuity of Chinese culture is demonstrated. Jade has continued to play an important role in Chinese art. Used from the earliest times for ritual and ceremonial purposes, it has always been treasured by the Chinese above even silver and gold. Prehistoric jade artifacts, when worked with skill, combine excellent craftsmanship with exquisite design. These, along with the neolithic ceramic masterpieces, reveal the high aesthetic concepts possessed by the Chinese people in primitive times.
CHAPTER TWO
The Art of the SHANG DYNASTY
(c. 1500 B.C.-1100 B.C.)
CHINESE ART enters its first historical period with the advent, about 1500 B.C., of the Shang dynasty. While the preceding Hsia dynasty is sometimes termed a "historical" dynasty, none of the artifacts discovered can definitely be attributed to the Hsia period. On the other hand, much is known about the Shang dynasty. Ssu-ma Ch'ien, a celebrated historian in the Han period, wrote at length about the Shang rulers. More important, through the discovery and interpretation of inscriptions on oracle bones and sacrificial bronze vessels, modern archaeology has pieced together a picture of the civilization in northern China at this time.
Just as the more ancient civilizations had originated in the valleys of great rivers—the Nile, Tigris, Euphrates, and Indus—so was the center of Shang culture
