. Chinese clay figures. Sculpture -- China; Arms and armor, Chinese; China -- Antiquities. History of the Rhinoceros 131 not a tame animal. Indeed, it inflicts injury on man; and for this reason the ancients availed themselves of it to fine a person a cup of wine, which is expressed by the phrase 'to raise the goblet of rhinoceros-horn.'l This goblet receives its name from the rhinoceros, and so it is proper also that there should be wine-kettles with the emblem of the rhinoceros. On the two ends of the handle of this vessel is pictured a rhinoceros with head and body complete, the latter havi
. Chinese clay figures. Sculpture -- China; Arms and armor, Chinese; China -- Antiquities. History of the Rhinoceros 131 not a tame animal. Indeed, it inflicts injury on man; and for this reason the ancients availed themselves of it to fine a person a cup of wine, which is expressed by the phrase 'to raise the goblet of rhinoceros-horn.'l This goblet receives its name from the rhinoceros, and so it is proper also that there should be wine-kettles with the emblem of the rhinoceros. On the two ends of the handle of this vessel is pictured a rhinoceros with head and body complete, the latter having the shape of a glutton (fao t'ie). This certainly indicates that it symbolizes a warning. In this manner all vessels were decorated during the Shang dynasty, and it is by such symbolic forms that they are distinguished from those of the ; Whatever the rough character of these two sketches transmitted by the Po ku t'u lu may be,2 the single-horned rhinoceros is here clearly outlined with a naive and refreshing realism, such as could be spontaneously produced only by the hand of primitive man, who with a few forceful outlines recorded his actual ex- perience of the animal. Here we do not face the narrow-breasted academic and philological construction of the scholars of the Sung period, but the direct and vigorous impression of the strong-minded hunter of past ages, who was formed of the same stuff as the Bushman of southern Africa and palaeolithic man living in the caves of Spain and France. No bridge spans the chasm yawning between the Shang and Sung productions. The Shang rhinoceros breathes the same spirit as its companions on the rock paintings of the Bushman (Fig. 19), and in the palaeolithic cave of Font-de-Gaume in France (Fig. 20). The general form of the. Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustrations may not perfectly resemble the o
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookpublisherchica, bookyear1914
