Busacca Gallery

Japanese Shinjūkyō, "deity and beast mirror") is an ancient type of round bronze mirror decorated with images of gods and animals from Chinese mythology. The shinjūkyō style of bronze mirror originated in China and was frequently produced during the Han Dynasty, Three Kingdoms, and Six Dynasties (1st-6th centuries CE). This mirror has a beautiful green and red patina with mythical sea creatures eating grapes. The obverse side has a polished mirror and the reverse has relief representations of legendary Chinese shen ("spirit; god"), Xian ("transcendent; immortal"), and legendary creatures. Today, the market of Chinese art is widely reported to be among the hottest and fastest-growing in the world, attracting buyers all over the world. The Voice of America reported in 2006 that Chinese art is raking in record prices both internationally and in domestic markets. Sotheby's noted that Chinese art has rapidly changed the Asian art world into one of the most dynamic sectors on the international art market.

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_art

Japanese Shinjūkyō (神獣鏡?, "deity and beast mirror") is an ancient type of round bronze mirror decorated with images of gods and animals from Chinese mythology. The obverse side has a polished mirror and the reverse has relief representations of legendary Chinese shen (神 "spirit; god"), Xian (仙 "transcendent; immortal"), and legendary creatures.





Sankakuen-shinjūkyō from the Tsubai Ōtsukayama kofun in Yamashiro, Kyoto. The shinjūkyō style of bronze mirror originated in China and was frequently produced during the Han Dynasty, Three Kingdoms, and Six Dynasties (1st-6th centuries CE). With the spread of Chinese bronze casting technology, shinjūkyō were also produced in Japan and the Lelang Commandery and Daifang Commandery in Korea. The ca. 297 CE Wei zhi (魏志 "Records of Wei"), which is part of the Sanguo zhi (三國志 "Records of the Three Kingdoms"), has the first historical reference to bronze mirrors in Japan. It chronicles tributary relations between Queen Himiko of Wa (Japan) and the Wei court, and records that in 239 CE, Emperor Cao Rui sent presents to Himiko, including "one hundred bronze mirrors" (tr. Tsunoda 1951:15.



Archeological excavations of Japanese tombs from the Kofun period (3rd-7th centuries CE) have revealed numerous shinjūkyō, and Japanese archeologists divide them into subtypes including:

sankakuen-shinjūkyō (三角縁神獣鏡?, "triangular-rimmed deity and beast mirror") gamontai-shinjūkyō (画文帯神獣鏡?, "wide image-band deity and beast mirror") hirabuchi-shinjūkyō (平縁神獣鏡?, "flat-rimmed deity and beast mirror").



A well-known kofun tomb excavated at the Yoshinogari site in Saga Prefecture contained 33 sankakuen-shinjūkyō bronze mirrors. Some scholars (Edwards 1998, 1999, Nishikawa 1999) believe they are the original mirrors that Emperor Cao Rui presented to Queen Himiko, but others disagree.



Chinese art (Chinese: has varied throughout its ancient history, divided into periods by the ruling dynasties of China and changing technology. Different forms of art have been influenced by great philosophers, teachers, religious figures and even political leaders. Chinese art encompasses fine arts and folk arts. Early forms of art in China were made from pottery and jade in the Neolithic period, to which was added bronze in the Shang Dynasty. The Shang are most remembered for their blue casting, noted for its clarity of detail.In early imperial China, porcelain was introduced and was refined to the point that in English the word china has become synonymous with high-quality porcelain. Around the 1st century AD, Buddhism arrived in China, though it did not become popular until the 4th century. At this point, Chinese Buddhist art began to flourish, a process which continued through the 20th century. It was during the period of Imperial China that calligraphy and painting became highly appreciated arts in court circles, with a great deal of work done on silk until well after the invention of paper. Buddhist architecture and sculpture thrived in the Sui and Tang dynasty. Of which, the Tang Dynasty was particularly open to foreign influence. Buddhist sculpture returned to a classical form, inspired by Indian art of the Gupta period. Towards the late Tang dynasty, all foreign religions were outlawed to support Taoism. In the Song dynasty, paintings of more subtle expression of landscapes appeared, with blurred outlines and mountain contours which conveyed distance through an impressionistic treatment of natural phenomena. It was during this period that in painting, emphasis was placed on spiritual rather than emotional elements, as in the previous period. In the Yuan dynasty, painting by the Chinese painter Zhao Mengfu (趙孟頫) greatly influenced later Chinese landscape painting. Under efforts of masters from the Shanghai School during the late Qing Dynasty, traditional Chinese art reached another climax and continued to the present in forms of the "Chinese painting" (guohua, 國畫). The Shanghai School challenged and broke the literati tradition of Chinese art, while also paying technical homage to the ancient masters and improving on existing traditional techniques.