Defining Yongle: Imperial Art in Early Fifteenth-Century China

Undoubtedly inspired by a controversial book written by a retired British Royal Naval officer, 1421: The Year China Discovered America (Harper Perennial, 2004), the exhibition makes a strong case for China's pioneering role in world exploration. In his book, Gavin Menzies describes how, in 1421, the Chinese travelled to America, prior to Columbus's 'discovery' in 1492, establishing colonies throughout South America, the Caribbean and North America. According to Menzies, the Chinese fleet, led around the globe by Zheng He (1371-1435), a Muslim eunuch, set out from China, put into port in Indochina, India and East Africa, rounded the tip of Africa, possibly touching western Portugal, crossed the Atlantic and sailed into the Caribbean along the east coast of North America. The fleet then visited the Arctic, sailed down the east coast of South America as far as the Antarctic, rounded the Cape of Good Hope, sailed along the west coast of South America and, possibly, north along the west coast of North America. The fleet then sailed across the Pacific Ocean, back to China.

In the exhibition catalogue, James CY Watt, the Brooke Russell Astor Chairman of the Metropolitan Museum's Department of Asian Art, sets the record straight. He notes that Zheng He undertook seven voyages, six of which were sponsored by Zhu Di (1402-1424) - the third emperor of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) and one of the most written about personalities in Chinese history. Zhu Di's reign was termed 'Yongle', or 'perpetual happiness' and he is generally referred to as the Yongle emperor or, simply, Yongle. Apparently, Zheng He was a great diplomat, as well as navigator and explorer, and advised Yongle to undertake many of the voyages. As Watt explains, between 1405 and 1407, a fleet of more than 300 ships, with nearly 28,000 men traveled to Java, Ceylon and the western part of India. During another voyage, between 1417 and 1419, Zheng He reached East Africa. During the Xuande reign (1426-1435), he made his seventh, and final, long-distance voyage to the Indian Ocean. There is no record of him travelling up the western coast of Africa, discovering the Americas or crossing the Pacific to return to China.

As Watt indicates, trade in luxury goods was an important impetus for, and focus of, these voyages, which brought porcelains, silks and other goods from China to exchange for spices and rare items such as ivory, rhinoceros horn and tortoise shell. Political considerations may also have been behind the voyages. Some sources indicate that Zhu Di ordered Zheng He to make the initial journey in 1405 for two reasons: to locate the deposed Ming emperor, Zhu Yunwen (the Jianwen Emperor), Zhu Di's nephew, who was thought to have sought shelter in South East Asia following three years of civil war; and to announce Zhu Di's claim to the throne. A precedent for sending out a fleet to announce a claim to the throne had been set by Zhu Di's father, Zhu Yuanzhang (the Hongwu Emperor), when he founded the Ming Dynasty.

Whatever the reasons for the expeditions, as Watt states, they have certainly generated many legends and historical studies. They have also drawn either praise as a spectacular achievement, or blame as an extremely expensive, but futile enterprise. Nevertheless, the art produced during Yongle's reign deserves attention because of its extraordinarily high quality and its influence on the subsequent development of Chinese art up to the end of the 18th century.

Although it occupied one small gallery within the museum's Asian Arts galleries, the exhibit offered a comprehensive view of Yongle-period art. Approximately 50 pieces included paintings, sculptures, textiles, ceramics and other media that exemplify two main influences: Zhu Di's interest in Tibetan Buddhism, and the artistic exchange between China and the Islamic lands in Central Asia and the Middle East that resulted from Zheng He's voyages. Visitors to the exhibit could see ceramics, leather, cloisonné, ivory and lacquer work; Buddhist art, including mandalas; painted silk tapestry known as kesi (a rare art form with intricate, hand-woven designs); sculpture; ritual implements (a ritual staff, a finial for a ritual staff, ritual fire spoons, an axe, a mace and flaying knife, a ritual dagger and an incense burner); textiles; and paintings of arhats, or fully realised Buddhist sages who, like bodhisattvas (compassionate saints who embody the qualities of the Buddha), remain in the phenomenal world to help guide mortals in their spiritual quest.

An early 15th century porcelain platter with a scalloped rim painted in underglaze cobalt blue, from the Peabody Essex Museum (E74098), served as an example of imperial ceramics produced at the kilns of Jingdezhen in Jiangxi Province, an area that has long been noted for the production of a variety of ceramics. Craftsmen in Jingdezhen played a seminal role in the creation of porcelains painted with cobalt blue under the glaze, a technique that produced some of the most treasured ceramics in art history. On this piece, elegant brushwork was used to form tree peonies in the center of the platter. Two large peony blossoms and smaller buds flow from a single stem that begins at the lower edge of the interior. Sprays of different types of flowers decorate the ribbed cavetto (the sloping sides of a bowl or dish), while a botanical scroll fills the rim. The catalogue text notes that extensive production of imperial wares at Jingdezhen can be traced to 1278, when the Fouliang Porcelain Bureau was established to produce wares for the court. In 1369, during Zhu Di's father's reign, Jingdezhen was once again placed under the supervision of the court; its position as the supplier of imperial ceramics continued, with minor interruptions, from the early 15th century into the early 20th. Jingdezhen craftsmen produced blue and white ceramics for export, as well.

A striking wood and leather carrying case from the early 15th century, in the collection of the museum (1999.61), is notable. It was painted with pigments and decorated with scrolls of lotuses with spiky blossoms, a motif that has been traced to the Mongol Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368) in China and, ultimately, to Nepal. The carrying case may have been made for one of the many Tibetan dignitaries who visited the Yongle court and returned home with gifts from the emperor.

Cloisonné was also imported to China during the Yuan Dynasty, probably via the south-western province of Yunnan, which, under the control of a Muslim governor, received an influx of people from central Asia. The cloisonné technique consists of designs on metal vessels with coloured-glass paste placed within an enclosure of copper or bronze wires that have been bent into the desired pattern. Generally, the enclosures, known as cloissons (partitions), are either soldered or pasted onto the metal body. Glass paste or enamel is coloured with metallic oxide and painted into the contained areas of the design. An example of cloisonné that is typical of Chinese early 15th century production, in the collection of the museum (1993.338) and displayed in the exhibit, is a small dish with a decoration of spiky, scrolling lotus blossoms. The design is similar to the scrolls of lotuses with spiky blossoms on the leather carrying case.

Examples of lacquer ware, produced in the early part of the 15th century, demonstrated further refinement of shapes and motifs of China's Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279). These shapes and motifs were also popular during the Yuan dynasty. Lacquer is the resin of the lac tree and, typically, objects made from this material have a substructure of wood or some other material and are coated with multiple layers that have been coloured, usually red or black. One type of lacquer ware in the exhibition was a box in the museum's collection (2001.584a-c), which once held a Buddhist sutra. The decoration is of the qiangjin technique first developed during the Song Dynasty. In this technique, fine lines are incised into a surface and gold foil or powdered gold is pressed into the grooves. The design on this piece is of five-clawed dragons striding among clouds on the top and sides of the box. During the Ming Dynasty, the lion motif became a symbol of imperial power. The flowing manes and beards, tufts of hair at the dragons' joints, their unevenly placed eyes, prominent snouts and long whiskers, and the careful placement of the scrolling clouds and leaves, have parallels with works in porcelain and other material, helping to date the box to the early 15th century. The sutra would have been written on a Chinese-style handscroll, which was then rolled up and stored in the box.

Also shown was a magnificent gilt bronze Buddha from the Speelman Collection in London, dated by its inscription: da Ming Yongle nian shi ('Bestowed in the Yongle era of the Great Ming'). This piece depicts the Buddha with broad shoulders, a powerful torso and long legs as he sits on a lotus pedestal that is set on an elaborate square throne and backed by a flame-shaped mandorla* that is filled with dense scrolls, some of which contain large spiky lotus blossoms. His curly hair is gathered into a slightly pointed topknot. The figure's easy posture and soft contours, and the naturalistic drape of his garment, are elements of Yongle style. The elegant casting of this piece is also characteristic of Yongle-era bronze sculpture, which is noted for its delicacy of detail and rich colouring of the mercury gilding.

A painting of an arhat, possibly Vanavasa, in ink, pigments and gold on a silk hanging scroll mounted as a framed panel, from the Robert Rosenkranz Collection, also bears the da Ming Yongle nian shi marking, in gold, on the right side of the painting, indicating that the work was painted at the court. It is one of three extraordinary paintings of arhats, from a set of nine that was included in the exhibition and provided insights into the Buddhist artistic traditions of China in the early 15th century. The cult of arhats was introduced from China to Tibet as early as the 14th century and, typically, Tibetan paintings of these figures follow Chinese models like the one represented here. A translation into Chinese of the Lotus Sutra by the famed Indian monk Kumarajiva (344-413) in the early 5th century helped to nourish belief in the arhats. Devotion to these deities is based on a text entitled A Record of the Abiding of the Dharma Spoken by the Great Arhat Nandimitra (Takakusu and Watanabe, eds, 1914-1932), which was translated from Sanskrit into Chinese by the Chinese monk and pilgrim Xuanzang (596-664).

Renderings of arhats are found in Chinese art as early as the 9th century and by the 12th century, they had become one of the principle images in Chinese Buddhist traditions. The arhat in the painting mentioned above is clothed in elegant robes, inhabits an isolated paradisiacal realm defined by mountains in the background and trees placed to the side, and is accompanied by an exotic attendant wearing a sarong-like garment and peacock feathers and holding a coral in a bowl in his hands. A phoenix, a mystical and mythical creature, strolls at the foot of the arhat. The towering mountains in the background were painted in shades of blue and green with touches of gold, following the traditional motif of blue and green landscape that was developed in China in the late 7th and 8th centuries. Unlike much of the religious imagery preserved from the Yongle period, this painting illustrates a traditional Chinese theme, rather than Tibetan.

This exhibition has been one of the small exhibitions, staged from time to time at the museum, that focus on individual topics. The focus of these exhibits consists of objects in various media collected over the past 15 years by the curators of the Department of Asian Art with the support of patrons of the department, particularly Florence and Herbert Irving and Sir Joseph Hotung. The Yongle exhibit was augmented by loans from other institutions and collectors, including Robert Rosenkranz, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Asia Society and Museum, the Rubin Museum of Art and the Peabody Essex Museum. The exhibition was co-curated by Brooke Russell Astor Chairman, James CY Watt, and Associate Curator, Denise Patry Leidy. The exhibit, and its accompanying catalogue, were made possible by the Miriam and Ira D Wallach Foundation.

LDK

* In Italian, the world mandorla means almond. The word denotes an artistic convention in which an oval or almond-shaped area surrounds a deity.