Ancient Chinese Bronze Art: Casting the Precious Sacral Vessel
中国古代的青铜艺术：礼器铸造

Ancient Chinese metalwork is unique. Unlike most other cultures, the Chinese did not hammer, forge, or rivet metals. They treated metals as liquids and cast objects using ceramic piece-molds. With forty-one outstanding examples of Chinese bronze art, this exhibition presented 1,500 years of casting technology from the Xia (ca. 2100– 1600 BCE), Shang (ca. 1600–1100 BCE), and Zhou (ca. 1100–256 BCE) dynasties, and explained the casting process, step by step, from making models with particular decorative patterns to constructing ceramic molds. Informative exhibition panels documented the results of recent discoveries in China. The panels guided the viewer to an appreciation of Chinese ritual bronzes as powerful aesthetic objects, products of a unique and evolving technology, and meaningful symbols of military power, political legitimacy, and access to heaven.