Art of East Asia: Neolithic & Bronze Age China
Ding in the mid Western Zhou style with a single geometric band of decoration
at the rim. After the fall of the Shang a new dynasty took over, the Zhou
(Chou) and ruled for the next several hundred years. Indeed the rituals
that the Shang rulers had performed were permitted to continue and the house
of Sung (i.e., the Shang ruling house) was enfeifed and required to continue
their ancestral rituals. In style the early Zhou bronzes kept much of the
symbolism and iconographic conventions of the Shang. But soon the details
and even the main images began ti evolve and to be replaces by other designs.
It is also known from inscriptions in the vessels themselves that permission
to make a vessel was the prerogative of the emperor and that these permissions
were passed out as favors, rewards and benefits of rank. The styles evolved
into rather squat, forms and, although many of the vessel types remained
in use several new types of vessels emerged.
