Feb., 1912. 



Jade. 



271 



Liu Sung) dynasties, a period between 

 the end of the third and the end of the 

 fifth centuries, in the Chinese text. The 

 geometric feather-ornament on the body 

 of the buckle is of special interest, as it, 

 too, displays pictorial influence ; the Chin- 

 ese editors make a very slight allusion to 

 this point readable between the lines by 

 remarking that the head, crest and 

 plumes of the phenix are represented "as 

 if alive" (ju sheng). Now we know that 

 this is one of the stock-phrases of Chinese 

 esthetics of painting, and the artists who 

 worked on the drawings of the Ku yii Vu 

 p'u were fully impregnated with this 

 phraseology. I have, for this reason, 

 introduced Fig. 176, a jade buckle with 

 a horse's head and a coiled hydra, be- 

 cause they here avail themselves of the 

 term sheng tung "life's motion" 1 with 

 reference to the wriggling motions of the 

 monster, the application of this term to 

 the motive in question being very in- 

 structive. The mere fact that the Sung 

 artists operate on these occasions with 

 the nomenclature of pictorial criticism, 

 and their hint at the dragon-motive of 

 Chang Serig-yu, sufficiently prove that 

 the great age of these jade buckles is 



Fig. 174. 

 Jade Buckle with Head of Dragon, 

 Mediaeval (from Ku yii t'u p'u). 



1 See Hirth, /. c, p. 58. This phrase is not identical with our word realism, but 

 denotes the peculiar live action in which a man, an animal or a plant is represented, 

 and in which the observation of a particular motion is brought out. This is one of 

 the most characteristic features of Chinese art and especially painting, which has 

 been recognized among us, before we became acquainted with the Chinese confession 

 (see Laufer, The Decorative Art of the Amur Tribes, pp. 77-78, and E. Grosse, 

 Kunstwissenschaftliche Studien, p. 205). Dr. Haddon, in a review of the former 

 work (Nature, 1903, p. 561 b) doubted whether this view of mine would appeal to 

 all readers, and remarked: "The idea that the bulk of the ornamentation of a 

 group of people is based mainly upon conceptions of motion is certainly new." But 

 this idea is that of East-Asiatics themselves and has been inborn in their minds and 

 working in full play for at least 1500 years; the Chinese art critics ever since the 

 fifth century have expressed it with full consciousness and made it one of the "Six 

 Canons" to be observed in painting: "life's motion," i. e. the specific action, posture, 

 movement peculiar to any living being or plant at a certain given moment. E. g. 

 bamboo-leaves drooping under the load of heavy rain-drops or agitated by the wind 

 is, first, an observation made in nature which the artist attempts to outline on paper; 

 others follow in his footsteps, the motive is copied over and over again, until it finally 

 degrades into a stereotyped ornament with a stereotyped name. 



