Transcultural Design: Global Contexts and Local Practices on the David Vases | #Art & Design History
Asian art has long been a blind spot in a western dominated perception of art history. Bringing discussions of this part of history to the table is important as it will change an orientalism-centered narrative, and build a historical view to see the culture and history of the world as a whole. As an Asian who practiced art and design for more than five years, I feel obligated to share what I have studied, read, and written, so that these artists, creations, and movements can be known and understood by more people.
Speaking of blue and white porcelain, many people, especially westerners, would subconsciously equate that with China, or precisely, the Ming dynasty. However, that is not how it began. In fact, this archetypal design of blue and white is an outcome of cultural exchange and openness in the Yuan dynasty, and the David Vases are the very significant and solid evidence (fig.1). They were produced with Muslim blue, in the period when the Mongolian became the ruler of China, combining the Chinese and Islamic design of patterns and forms, to worship a Chinese god, collected by a westerner, and finally, are exhibited in the British Museum. The transcultural design within the David Vases presents a more vivid and dynamic global history.
Historical Background
The Chinese tradition of accurately recording the date of production enables these vases to be verified as blue and white porcelain of high quality that predates the Ming dynasty. It was written in the inscription that they were made on 13 May 1351, that is, in the latter half period of the Yuan dynasty. The Mongol Empire was established by Genghis Khan after uniting Northeast Asian nomadic tribes. He launched the invasions of the Middle East and conquered a large part of Eurasia. It was his grandson Qubilai Khan who founded the Yuan dynasty in 1260 and united China by ending the Southern Song dynasty in 1279. At that time, the Mongol Empire reached its greatest extent and became the dynasty in Chinese history with the largest territory, which ushered in the Pax Mongolia.
This Mongolian Peace ensured the security of the ancient Silk Road, which enabled Marco Polo to visit China from Italy and returned to Europe safely with what he had seen and heard. It is his travel journey that the word "porcelain" comes from. The Italian slang word "porcellana" refers to cowry shells whose appearance indeed resembles the hard and sheeny quality of Chinese ceramics (fig.2). Moreover, this peace recovered the local markets and industries across the Middle East from plunder and destruction and turned that into the major new market for exporting and trading. With Qubilai's support in manufacturing luxury goods, Jingdezhen, the core of southeast China's ceramic industry, gradually adapted their design to mirror the local style in the Middle East market.
Muslim Blue
The use of Muslim cobalt blue is one of the clear evidence that they adapted their design to meet local Iranian aesthetics. Cobalt blue is generally considered to be imported from Persia in the form of smalt. The earliest use of this blue in China dates back to the Tang dynasty. It was used for decorating monochrome blue and sancai wares as a glaze colorant but was rarely used on white stonewares (fig.3).
However, Persian had been using cobalt blue to paint on white tin glaze for ceramic decoration centuries before Chinese. This two tin-glazed bowls from Iraq in the ninth century are such examples (fig.4, fig.5). The high-fired white wares imported from China gave them the inspiration to reproduce this whiteness on their low-fired ceramics, but they preferred using the white as a canvas for cobalt blue or copper green than leaving it completely plain. This blue was rather hard to control because it could easily diffuse in the glaze.
They then came up with the idea of containing the blue by using a more stable pigment such as black or darker blue, which was referenced by the designers in the Yuan dynasty (fig.6). Later in the Ming dynasty, they discovered a local cobalt blue and its mixture with imported Muslim cobalt blue which could achieve a nearly violet intensity (fig.7). Although blue and white porcelains in Ming were more exquisite than those in Yuan, it was in Yuan that this design became an archetype and trademark.
Pattern, Inscription & Form
Apart from the use of Muslim blue, the patterns on the David Vases also suggest that the design is transcultural. There are chrysanthemums and plantains at the top, phoenixes, and lotuses at the neck, elephant head at the handles attached to the neck, four-clawed dragons with beards at the main body, peonies at the bottom neck and auspicious objects at the foot. All these patterns were distributed in different paralleled panels framed by thin and thick outlines, with cloud scrolls, flames, serpentine waves or spiked lobed leaves filling the rest of the space (fig.8). The decorative motifs of lotuses, dragons and phoenixes originated from China. Lotuses emblem the belief in Buddism, while dragons and phoenixes symbolize auspiciousness and nobility.
However, the twining floral pattern came from the arabesque in Islamic art. This design can be found in its architecture and decorative arts long ago. The Mshatta Facade, part of an eighth-century Islamic palace, was one of the proofs (fig.9). Also, the composition of paralleled decorative panels was also inspired by Islamic architecture. It was this combination of the Chinese and Islamic design that made blue and white style unique and classic.
Despite a rather transcultural design on pattern and composition, the inscription on the David Vases shows that they were purposely made for rather traditional usage. The inscription tells that their donor, Zhang Wenjin, a man from Shungcheng (now Jiangxi province) who described himself as a solemn disciple of the Holy Gods, offered these vases and an incense burner (not yet been found) at a temple to General Hu Jingyi asking him for blessing and protection. This deity was a military figure with supernatural power in the thirteenth century who had recently become a god. These grand vases, along with the incense burner should have formed an altar set.
As parts of an altar set with large size, the form and size of the David Vases indicate another transcultural perspective. They are over 24 inches in height and about 8 inches in diameter, narrow in top and bottom, swelling in the middle, with elephant-head shaped handles on the neck. This general form of ceramics can be commonly found in former dynasties except for the handles with the elephant-head shape. Those handles were referenced from the early Chinese metalwork such as gui, a type of bowl-shaped bronze ware used to hold offerings in rituals, usually with two or four handles in a zoomorphic form (fig.10).
Reflection on Chinese culinary habits
Not only the shape is interesting, but also the size. The massive size of Yuan blue and white contrast with the slighter ceramics in the former dynasties. The increase in scale indicates a change in culinary habits and the Mongolian's hegemony throughout Eurasia was responsible for this. Before Yuan, Chinese cuisine relied on well-cooked dishes served in multiple individual bowls and plates. Whilst the Mongolian subsisted on livestock meat, wild fruits and vegetables supplemented by milk and its products. One of their traditions was using kumiss, a type of fermented mare's milk, to wash down the blood and dirt from the flesh. This tradition spawned a classic form of early blue and white porcelain which is a pouring bowl with a short spout and a ring for attachment to their belt (fig.11).
However, after they conquered Western Asia, they were intrigued by the new ingredients and the new way of consuming them. They adopted the Middle Eastern practice of communal feasting that everybody sat around large plates and bowls placed on a low-stand tray (fig. 12). Also, many parallels found in Islamic and Chinese recipes show that the culinary habits transmitted bidirectionally. This transmission not only impacted on the scale of blue and white tableware but also led a trend to enlarge the size of porcelains with other uses.
Distribution
In addition to bringing out a transcultural design, the Pax Mongolia also facilitated international trade and therefore the Yuan blue and white porcelains were widely distributed. Collections of Yuan blue and white found in India, Turkey, Iran, Syria and other sites around the Strait of Malacca, the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, and the coast of East Africa are great testimonies to its prevalence (fig. 13). These sites show that the porcelains were exported by both land and sea. However, the appreciation and collecting of Chinese ceramics began long ago, at least as early as the Tang dynasty. The Yuan blue and white was just following this well-formed trajectory.
In the first place, the royalty in Persia, Turkey, and Egypt procured blue and white porcelain for its pragmatic function along with its matching aesthetics. Then later in Europe, blue and white became an emblem of elegant taste, being displayed in their courts and further decorated with bullion mounts by ruling classes. With the trade going on, blue and white porcelain was slightly easier to obtain and the wealthy bourgeoisie also had the chance to collect them. Over the centuries, those porcelains have been changed hands. It was not until 1935 that the David Vases were brought into the reunion. Sir Percival David, who collected more than 1500 pieces of Chinese ceramics, bought one of them from the Hon. Mountstuart Elphinstone in 1927 and bought another at Sotheby's from the Charles E. Russell collection in 1935.
Display & Exhibit
After being collected, these blue and white porcelains are exhibited worldwide. The David Vases are placed right at the entrance of the gallery which specifically shows the collection of Sir Percival David at the British Museum, inside a glass display case with a completely empty background (fig.14).
Nevertheless, this design of display and exhibit was not originally from China. Although in today's galleries and museums, the design of placing exhibits behind the glass for protection is reasonable, it was not how it began. The Ming dynasty painting Early Summer which depicted scholars studying and appreciating artworks proves that the Chinese tended to appreciate artworks in aspectant (fig.15).
Also, the aesthetic of displaying artworks with an empty background was not introduced until the early twentieth century by artists groups like De Stijl and Bauhaus in response to the rising of abstract modern art. They thought the empty background, especially the white background, could give out a sense of neutrality for people to focus on the work without being distracted or misled.
However, the Chinese way of display and appreciating is rather different. Paintings, metalworks, ceramics, jade wares, and other artworks were displayed tangibly accessorized by textured silk, incised wooden stand or embellished shelf, which can be found in Shi Yi Shi Er, a Qing dynasty portrait depicting Emperor Qianlong in his study (fig.16).
Modern Transcultural Interpretation
This classic design of blue and white goes further than just being on porcelains, it has been replicated to products, furniture, and even fashion contemporarily. A very recent example is Italian fashion designer Roberto Cavalli’s satin evening dress, which was exhibited in “China: Through the Looking Glass” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2015 (fig.17). The composition, pattern, and form ingeniously blend in a western evening dress. The paralleled panels of plantains, dragons, peonies and serpentine waves are used to separate the dress into sections according to different body parts. Narrow in the waist and thigh, swelling in the haunch, the form of this dress resembles the form of blue and white vases. However, the function of this dress is totally western. Women in western countries wore evening dresses to attend balls and banquets as early as the thirteenth century.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the David Vases became canonical not only because of the rare inscriptions on their necks, making them the oldest dated blue and white porcelain in the world, but also the rich research value on the manufacture, motif, composition, and form. The transcultural discourses brought by these vases and other blue and white porcelain connect the material cultures across Eurasia, neither labeling a practice as more originally Islamic nor authenticating an innovation as more paradigmatically Chinese. It is a dynamic and vivid global history that the transcultural study tends to present.
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