An Introduction to Bronze Statuettes of the Far East

Abstract

For the purpose of this exhibition it became obvious that the Far Eastern bronzes must be included in a single group, no matter what their periods or the purposes for which they had been made. Thus, such ritual containers as the jars in owl form, the chimera half decorative and half suggesting an obscure nature worship, and the libation cup shaped like a water buffalo (opposite) stand beside Buddhist deities that were made a dozen centuries later to satisfy a totally different religious instinct. The only things they have in common are perhaps the mere facts that they were all cast in bronze and that they served Oriental cultures now dead or dying. But even to state this obvious fact is to clear the air to help the Westerner regard them each in its proper light.