Art Eyewitness Review: Recasting the Past: the Art of Chinese Bronzes, 1100-1900

 

Recasting the Past: the Art of Chinese Bronzes

 1100-1900

Metropolitan Museum of Art 

February 28 - September 28, 2025

Reviewed by Ed Voves

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is currently re-evaluating Chinese civilization from the vantage point of works of art which have not been viewed in particularly high esteem. The objects on display date from the high Middle Ages (by Western date conventions) to the dawn of the twentieth century. 

Ed Voves, Photo (2025 )

 Tripod Incense Burner, Qing Dynasty, created 1736-95

These bronze cast sculptures, along with works in other media, were held to be derivative exercises in scholarly nostalgia rather than bold statements of cultural vitality, such as those The Met featured in the spectacular Art of Empires exhibit in 2017.

Recasting the Past: the Art of Chinese Bronzes, 1100-1900, is sure to lead to a more positive assessment of these striking works of art. But, as with most generalizations, there are elements of fact which, if viewed out of context, can lead to a distorted appraisal.

Ed Voves, Photo (2025 )

 Ritual Ox Tripod (niuding), used as a cauldron at

 the Imperial Ancestral Temple, Northern Song Dynasty, 1114

Two hundred works of art (half from The Met's incomparable collection) are displayed in the exhibition. Though some of these are not bronzes, all exemplify a major feature of Chinese civilization, called fugu or the "return to the past." 

The historical era which these precious objects celebrated was the very distant past: the Shang dynasty (1600-1046 B.C.) and the two successor Zhou dynasties (1046-256 B.C.) This was China's bronze age, which was revered as a "golden" age.

Shang bronzes are among the most notable works of art produced in Asia. These bronze-cast objects were intended to be functional, not merely ornamental. Most importantly, Shang bronzes were foundational to the cultural expression of the subsequent dynasties which followed over the long course of China's history. The Met has several outstanding examples of Shang bronzes on view in nearby galleries. 

Wine pouring Vessel (Gong), Shang Dynasty, 13th-11th century B.C.

Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

If displayed in a direct "face-off" with the works of art on view in Recasting the Past, the Shang bronzes would "win" by almost all standards of aesthetic judgement. Fugu bronzes and works of jade were made, for the most part, for display or contemplation, unlike Shang bronzes. As a consequence, the scales of judgment seem even more tilted against these later works.

Yet, when viewed from the overarching context of Chinese history, Recasting the Past enables us to value the very impressive levels of technical skill devoted to these later works. These were intended to foster appreciation of China's ancient heritage and to revive the craft methods of bronze casting.

Most importantly, the fugu concept enabled China's cultural elite to withstand the depredations of waves of invaders and thus preserve the core values of their remarkable civilization.

Vase with Archiastic Design, Yuan Dynasty, 14th century

 Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

In addressing these criteria, the Recasting the Past artifacts deserve our consideration as high caliber works of art, indeed.

Ed Voves, Photo (2025 )

 Gallery view of Recasting the Past: the Art of Chinese Bronzes.  

 At left, is a Tripod Incense Burner, c. 1403-24

"Location, location" is the mantra of real estate agents. "Context, context" is the similar refrain for art historians and curators. Recasting the Past provides both for the study of these masterworks of Chinese civilization.

First, let's examine the location of the exhibition.

Ed Voves, Photo (2025 )

 The Astor Chinese Garden Court at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

The galleries of Recasting the Past are located adjacent to the Astor Chinese Garden Court. Built by expert Chinese craftsman who used traditional techniques and authentic materials, the Astor Court recreates the courtyard of a scholar-official of the Ming Dynasty, 1368-1644 . It was in such settings that the bronze, jade and ceramic works of art on display in Recasting the Past were first collected by gentleman-savants and used in small group discussions.

The Met has a wonderful depiction of such an event, with the engaging title, Elegant Gathering in the Apricot Garden, ca. 1437. It is an elaborate hand scroll showing the Ming Dynasty statesman, Yan Rong, engaged in cultured activities with several other scholar-officials. One of the scenes shows tables set with painting and calligraphy materials and bronze vessels similar to those on view in the exhibition.

 Xie Huan, Elegant Gathering in the Apricot Garden (detail), c. 1437

 

Such "elegant gatherings" must have been idyllic occasions, especially during the early decades of the Ming Dynasty. The Ming Dynasty was comparable both in its begin/end dates and in its influence on Chinese civilization to the role of the Renaissance in Europe.

Ed Voves, Photo (2025 )

 Gallery view of Recasting the Past: the Art of Chinese Bronzes

at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

The bronze and jade favored by scholar-officials like Yan Rong tended to be moderate in size, rather than monumental, and very much in the spirit of fugu. Why would the ideal of a "return to the past" find favor in a dynamic state like the Ming Dynasty? 

For that we need historical context. 

Ed Voves, Photo (2025 )

  Ceremonial Bell with Imperial Procession, Landscape, and

 Mythical Creatures in Waves, Northern Song Dynasty, 12th century

The lead work of art in the exhibition is the Ceremonial Bell with Imperial Procession, Landscape, and Mythical Creatures in Waves. This huge - and hugely impressive - bronze bell dates to the early 12th century, the era of the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127).

This mighty bell was meant to be functional, sounded by being struck on its surface with mallets. The mythological dragons at its top and the bas-relief depictions of an Imperial procession, replete with elephants and flag bearers, deliberately evoke the artistic motifs and the spirit of the "golden age" Shang Dynasty.

Ed Voves, Photo (2025 )

  Details of Ceremonial Bell with Imperial Procession, Landscape,

 and  Mythical Creatures in Waves

The Song Dynasty, in its two manifestations was ruled by a native Chinese family of Han ancestry. It was a powerful and culturally-dynamic regime. During the 1100's, this political climate changed drastically, as raiders from what is now Manchuria began to assail China. Under pressure, the Song Dynasty regrouped to a new, more defensible capital city, Lin'an, south of the Yangtze River. Then, in 1205, scattered attacks from Mongolia escalated into a full-scale catastrophe. 

By 1279, the unthinkable had occurred. The Mongols under Kublai Khan had invaded all of China. For the first time ever, the entire Middle Kingdom was controlled by a non-Chinese dynasty. 

Historians are divided in their judgments on the Mongol impact on China. The Mongols bestowed high rank on certain elite groups, especially engineers and skilled technicians. Chinese merchants found expanded opportunities in the Mongol dominions which stretched from the Volga River and the Crimea to the shores of the Pacific Ocean. 

The Mongols, however, regarded China's scholar-officials, the traditional governing class of the Middle Kingdom, as a subversive threat to their hegemony over the conquered empire.

The Mongols sharply diminished the access of the scholar-officials to government posts. In a cunning move, the Mongol khans curtailed the elaborate examination process which had long sustained the career track of these scholarly gentlemen in their service to the ruling dynasties of China.

Denied their long-standing position in Chinese society, the scholar-officials retreated to their country homes. In the seclusion of their libraries and gardens, they engaged in fugu connoisseurship. 

Ed Voves, Photo (2025 )

 Fugu artifacts, Yuan Dynasty era, 14th century. From left:

 Incense Burner in the Shape of a Lion; Brush Rest in the Shape of Twin Dragons; Tripod Vase; Paperweights in the Shape of Crabs

The reduction in political status was reflected in the modest scale of the works of art which the scholar-officials treasured. Exquisitely crafted, fugu artifacts were certainly ingenious and conveyed more than a touch of whimsy. Most had at least a nominal use like the intertwined dragons (second from left, above) which functioned as a brush rest and the wrestling crabs which served as a paper weight.

Ed Voves, Photo (2025 )

 Incense Burner in the Shape of a Goose, 14th century

Larger in size, but from the same time period (14th century) was the Incense Burner in the Shape of a Goose. It is a singular creature, with extremely naturalistic detail in its anatomy and plumage, yet with dragon-like eyes. When the incense smoke came wafting out of its beak, the copper-alloy goose must have been an alarming sight to those who had never beheld such a creature before.

These wonderful objects d' art were chiefly meant to please the eyes and console the minds of the Chinese intelligentsia after their demotion in rank. And none better expresses the poignant devotion to China's past by the scholar-officials than a tabletop tableau which evokes the serene atmosphere of the Astor Court.

Rock Landscape with Rectangular Planter "Floating Bridge of Dreams".  Yuan dynasty era, 14th century. Tokugawa Art Museum.

The Rock Landscape with Rectangular Planter dates to the Mongol-dominated 1300's. With a miniature landscape such as this, a scholar-official could find solace and enlightenment,  despite being an "exile" in his native land. And that was especially true for those who lacked the financial resources to maintain an estate like the Astor Chinese Garden Court.

Not just the Chinese were inspired by this small wonder. It is reputed to have been a personal favorite of the Japanese emperor, Go-Daigo, who reigned, 1318-39. The title "Floating Bridge of Dreams", from the last chapter of The Tale of Genji, was bestowed on this marvelous art work, showing that the concept of fugu could be embraced with reverence and enthusiasm in a non-Chinese social setting.

The Mongol Empire took the name of the Yuan Dynasty and assumed many of the traditional features of Chinese civilization. Eventually, they even revived the examination process for government positions. 

However, when factional infighting in the Yuan court occurred during the mid-1300's, the Mongol grip on power weakened. A series of populist uprisings throughout China led to the establishment of the native Ming Dynasty in 1366. 

The Ming triumph revived some of the authority and influence of the scholar-officials who had languished under Mongol disfavor for most of the Yuan era. They celebrated their return to high status by commissioning works of art, very much in the fugu spirit, modestly-proportioned and exquisite in detail. Many of these were created in the workshop of an accomplished father-son team, Hu Wenming and Hu Guangyu.

Hu Wenming, Incense Burner with Flowers,

 Ming Dynasty, late 16th-17th century. 

As might be expected, the revival of traditional ideals of Chinese religious and social mores did occasion the creation of works of art of a size suited to public display. The early Ming emperors sponsored the renovation of Daoist religious shrines, with particular veneration shown to the deity Zhenwu, who was regarded as as a national protector. Several Ming emperors were also devoted to Buddhism and commissioned sculpture portraits of the Buddha and bodhisattvas like Mahamayuri, the Peacock Wisdom King. 

Ed Voves, Photo (2025 )

 Laozi Riding an Ox, created by Xue Mingyang, 

Ming Dynasty, 1569 or 1629

Among the Ming Dynasty works devoted to Daoism, a copper alloy ensemble of Laozi Riding an Ox is particularly striking. Eighteen inches in height, the venerable sage, Laozi, and his ox-steed are depicted headed westward on a journey of enlightenment.

Ed Voves, Photo (2025)

Statue of Sudhana (Shancai Tongz), 1641

Another wanderer in search of enlightenment is Sudhana or Shancai Tongzi. A Buddhist pilgrim, Sudhana is usually shown worshiping Guanyin, the bodhisattva of compassion. This magnificent work of gilded copper alloy, standing 43 inches tall, was made in the Imperial Workshops and is believed have been one of a multi-figure group. If so, it was surely part of one of the greatest of all Ming-era works of art.

Laozi on his ox and the beaming Sudhana are likely to have been favored subjects for Ming patronage because they evoked the chain of events which resulted in the triumph of the Ming Dynasty. The founder of the dynasty had started life as a Buddhist monk. He was named Zhu Yuanshang (1328-1398). In an incredible tale of courage and resourcefulness, Zhu Yuanshang joined a group of peasant rebels known as the Red Turbans and then formed his own resistance force which eventually drove the Mongols out of China. Defeating rival warlords, he took the title of Hongwu Emperor.

Despite his ecstatic expression, Sudhana is actually an isolated, lonely figure in the exhibit gallery. This somber atmosphere is matched by the historical record. In 1644, only three years after this statue - and its likely companions - had been completed, the Ming Dynasty collapsed.

History had repeated itself. A rebellion of peasants, impoverished and starving, overwhelmed the Ming government. Northern "barbarians" from Manchuria smashed the weakened frontier defenses and seized Beijing.

How could such a capable regime like the Ming Dynasty succumb to a revolt much like the one which had enabled them to seize power? The chain of disaster was long, but the primary cause was the impact of the Little Ice Age of the 1600s. A sequence of short, cold planting seasons and failed harvests undermined the Ming Dynasty.

Once the Manchu invaders had crushed or marginalized the last Ming loyalists, a depressing revival of Mongol tactics on China's culture ensued ... but its duration was not as long nor as destructive. 

Ed Voves, Photo (2025)

Qing Dynasty Ritual Artifacts. At left is a Ritual Bell, 1715;

 at right is a Ritual Vessel (xizun), created between 1736-95

Within a few years, the emperors of the Qing Dynasty, as the Manchurian ruling elite stylized themselves, were enthusiastically engaged in collecting and commissioning fugu works of art. Such was the irresistible power of China's traditional culture.

Recasting the Past: the Art of Chinese Bronzes thus concludes on a high note. In fact, the finale of this "only the Metropolitan Museum can do" exhibition is so fantastic that I spent almost as much time examining it, as I did the rest of the exhibited works of art.

Ed Voves, Photo (2025 )

 Gallery view of Recasting the Past: the Art of Chinese Bronzes, 

 showing Mahamayuri on Peacock, 1426-35

I was not alone. Many visitors to the exhibition halted in their tracks to gaze in wonder at Mahamayuri on Peacock. Dating from 1426 to 1435, the apogee of the Ming Dynasty renaissance, this astonishing talisman of Asian spirituality deserves a review just for itself. 

And so, we will cease our contemplation of these precious relics of old China. We close our review of this "once in a lifetime" exhibit at The Met with the promise to "return to the past" with a future Art Eyewitness review devoted to Mahamayuri on Peacock. 

***

Text: Copyright of Ed Voves, all rights reserved

Introductory Image: Statue of Sudhana (Shancai Tongz)(detail), 1641.

Ed Voves, Photo (2025) Tripod Incense Burner, Qing Dynasty, created 1736-95.  Cloisonne enamel, gilt copper alloy: H. 15 3/8 in. (39.1 cm) x W. 8 5/8 in. (21.9); Diam. of rim 8 in. (11.1 cm) Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Ed Voves, Photo (2025)  Ritual Ox Tripod (niuding) Northern Song Dynasty, 1114. Copper alloy: H. 19 11/16 in. (50 cm); W. 24 7/8 in. (63.2 cm); Diam. 20 3/4 in. (52. 7 cm); Wt. 75 lb. (34 kg) Lent by Hebei Provincial Museum

Wine pouring Vessel (Gong), Shang Dynasty, 13th-11th century B.C. Bronze: H. 8 ½ in. (21.6 cm. Metropolitan Museum of Art

Vase with Archiastic Design, Yuan Dynasty, 14th century.  Bronze: H. 15 1/2 in. (39.4 cm); Diam. 8 in. (20.3 cm); Diam. of rim 4 3/8 in. (11.1 cm); Diam. of foot 5 5/8 in. (14.3 cm) Purchase, Brooke Russell Astor Bequest, 20142014.449 Metropolitan Museum of Art

Ed Voves, Photo (2025)  Gallery view of Recasting the Past: the Art of Chinese Bronzes.  At left, Tripod Incense Burner, c. 1403-24. Gilt copper alloy: H. 25 7/8 in. (65.7) x W. 25 3/16 in. (64 cm) Diameter: 20 in. (50.8 cm.) Lent by Qinghai Provincial Museum.

Ed Voves, Photo (2025)  The Astor Chinese Garden Court at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Ming dynasty (1368–1644), 17th century style. Taihu rocks, granite terrace, ceramic tile flooring, roof tiles, and door frames, various woods (nan wood columns, pine beams, gingko latticework), brass fittings. Metropolitan Museum of Art, Purchase, The Vincent Astor Foundation Gift, 1981

Xie Huan, Elegant Gathering in the Apricot Garden, c. 1437. Handscroll; ink and color on silk: 14 ¾ in. x 95 ¾ in. ( 37.1 x 243.2 cm) Metropolitan Museum of Art

Ed Voves, Photo (2025) Gallery view of Recasting the Past: the Art of Chinese Bronzes at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Ed Voves, Photo (2025) Ceremonial Bell with Imperial Procession, Landscape, and Mythical Creatures in Waves, Northern Song Dynasty, 12th century.) Copper alloy cast: H. 70 7/8 in. (180 cm), Diam. 32 in. (81.3 cm); Wt. 1554.2 lb. (705 kg) Lent by Liaoning Provincial Museum, Shenyang, China.

Ed Voves, Photo (2025)  Fugu artifacts, Yuan Dynasty era, 14th century. From left: Incense Burner in the Shape of a Lion; Brush Rest in the Shape of Twin Dragons; Tripod Vase; Paperweights in the Shape of Crabs. All objects are on loan from the Fujian Provincial Museum, China.

Ed Voves, Photo (2025)  Incense Burner in the Shape of a Goose, 14th century.Copper alloy: H. 26 3/8 in. (67 cm); W. 15 in. (38.1 cm); D. 8 1/2 in. (21.6 cm); Wt. 15.5 lb. (7 kg) Private collection on loan to the exhibition at The Met.

Rock Landscape with Rectangular Planter "Floating Bridge of Dreams". Yuan dynasty era, 14th century: 14th century Bronze, rock  Rock: H. 1 3/4 in. (4.4cm); L. 11 7/16 in. (29.1 cm)Planter: H. 3 1/8 in. (7.9 cm); W. 4 5/16 in. (11 cm); L. 14 5/16 in.(36.4cm) Courtesy of Tokugawa Art Museum

Hu Wenming, Incense Burner with Flowers, Ming Dynasty, late 16th-17th century.  Copper alloy, parcel gilding, silver inlay: H. 3 ¼ in. (8.3 cm); Diam. of rim 4 in. (10.2 cm) Metroppolitan Museum of Art.

Ed Voves, Photo (2025) Laozi Riding an Ox, created by Xue Mingyang, Ming Dynasty, 1569 or 1629. Copper alloy, pigments:H. 18 in. (45.7 cm); W. 13 7/8 in. (35.2 cm); D. 5 1/2 in. (14 cm) Promised Gift of Julia and John Curtis, in celebration of the Metropolitan Museum’s 150th Anniversary

Ed Voves, Photo (2025) Statue of Sudhana (Shancai Tongz), 1641. Gilt copper alloy: H. 43 in. (109,2.7 cm); W. 21 in. (53.3 cm); D. 20  in. (50.8 cm) Art Properties, Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University

Ed Voves, Photo (2025) Qing Dynasty Ritual Artifacts. Ritual Bell, 1715;  Ritual Vessel (xizun), created between 1736-95.  Bell: Gilt copper alloy: H. 12 ¾ in. (32.4 cm); W. 8 ¾ in. (22.2 cm) Metropolitan Museum Collection.  Vessel: Copper alloy: H. 15 3/16 in. (38.6 cm); Diam. 4 5/16 in. (11 cm); Wt. 36.4 lb (16.5 kg) Lent by The Palace Museum.

 Ed Voves, Photo (2025)  Gallery view of Recasting the Past: the Art of Chinese Bronzes, showing Mahamayuri on Peacock, 1426-35

 

Art Eyewitness Book Review: The Oxford Illustrated History of the World

The Oxford Illustrated History of the World

Edited by Felipe Fernández-Armesto
 Oxford University Press/$60/481 pages

Reviewed by Ed Voves

Readers of the Christian New Testament (Hebrews 4:12) will be familiar with the image of a "two edged sword."  This weapon is used as metaphor for the living word of God which can pierce "unto the division of the soul and the spirit, of the joints also and the marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart."

On a more earthly plain, two edged swords certainly have stabbed and sliced "of the joints and the marrow" of countless human beings. Two edged swords cut both ways. The weapon you use to kill an enemy can kill you. Sometimes this occurs by accident rather than design -"friendly fire" is a current way of describing it. Two edged swords have also been used in acts of suicidal despair, as King Saul, forsaken by God and defeated by the Philistines, fell upon his sword.

As I read the brilliant and provocative new book, The Oxford Illustrated History of the World, the image of the two edged sword kept appearing and reappearing in my mind. Civilization is a two edged sword.

And not just swords. The biblical passage of swords being hammered into plowshares is worthy of note. Plowshares, the subject of much discussion in the Oxford book, are "two edged" too. Cutting through turf, plowshares create this year's topsoil which wind and rain turn into next year's dust and mud.

A plough pulled by oxen, from the Luttrell Psalter, c.1325 (British Library)

In just under five hundred pages, the authors of The Oxford Illustrated History of the World have achieved a near impossible feat of scholarship. They trace the rise of Homo Sapiens as the dominant living species on Planet Earth. The momentous journey from the cradle of human life in prehistoric Africa to the present phase of the "Great Acceleration" is presented in a judicious blend of sweeping narrative and lucid commentary.

Drawing upon the latest research in earth science, biology and climatology, the Oxford volume closely links the dominant status of Homo Sapiens to the ability to adapt to challenging living conditions on all continents except Antarctica.The book's first chapter (written by Clive Gamble) presents informed and intriguing speculation that the replacement of Neanderthals by humans in Europe occurred 40,000 years ago following a huge volcanic eruption. As Neanderthals were "as large brained as their human contemporaries," the change was not due to lack of intelligence. Humans likely gained predominance by their enhanced ability to respond to challenges, acquired during the migrations from East Africa.

The skull of Homo Sapiens (left) compared to a Neanderthal skull

Clive Gamble writes: 

We became the lonely, global species as a result of imagination, supported by advanced cognitive skills, which gave us myths, afterlives, ancestors, gods, and history - the cultural dreams of a clever, versatile biped...This imagination, validated by society and culture, saw benefit in going beyond, taking the risk, moving out of the long-inhabited hominin comfort zone...

The editor of The Oxford Illustrated History of the World, Felipe Fernández-Armesto, is the perfect leader of the team of scholars responsible for this splendid book. A brilliant and unorthodox historian,  Fernández-Armesto wrote two of the chapters of this global history. The first considers the birth of art and ideas during the Paleolithic "Ice Age," while the second surveys the rise and fall of the agriculture-based civilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus Valley city-states and the Shang and Zhou dynasties of ancient China. 

Other notable historians follow Fernández-Armesto's example and Gamble's superb opening chapter. The combined scholarship of this Oxford illustrated history balances wide-ranging appraisal with tightly-focused scrutiny on significant factors. The text is brilliantly complemented by pictures of extraordinary works of art and readily understandable maps and charts.

Buddhist Expansion in Asia to about 1300 CE

A good example of the book's balance of far-sighted perception  and incisive example occurs in the chapter on life during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. John Brooke notes that changed climate conditions in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries brought significant rainfall to the Eurasian steppe. Grassland grew in what had been a vast stretch of near desert. Mongol raiders under Genghis Khan thus had a ready supply of forage, enabling them to create a land empire from the Volga and Dnieper rivers in Russia to Korea and China. Along with the marauding armies of the Mongols traveled the Yersinia pestis bacillus, the plague microbe responsible for the Black Death.

Natural calamities of the magnitude of the Black Death or the Spanish Influenza pandemic of 1918-19 are comparatively rare. On the other hand, the frequency of societal smash-ups is almost predictable in its wheel-of-misfortune regularity.

Fernández-Armesto and his fellow scholars view the development of human societies from a broad continuum. As a result, traditional textbook dates for "smash-ups" like the fall of the Roman Empire in the West, 476 AD, sometimes appear in the middle of chapters, rather than more definitive places on history's timeline.

John Brooke's "Material Life: Bronze Age Crisis to the Black Death," is one of three chapters spanning the long period from the collapse of Bronze Age city-states and kingdoms around the presumed date for the Trojan War (1200 BC) to the Renaissance in Europe. Brooke, David Northrup and Ian Morris examine how humanity in this long phase of history developed complex societies and religious/philosophical foundations to sustain them.

Often the most creative ideas and innovations occurred during the "dark ages" which punctuated this millennium and a half. Homer's Iliad was composed during a truly dark time, a least in terms of written records, following the collapse of the Mycenaean civilization in Greece (1100-750 BC). It was only written down after the Greeks had adapted the alphabet of the seafaring Phoenicians for their own use. Not long after this, the Hebrew Bible began to be organized in written form by Jews who had been forced to migrate to Babylon after Judea was conquered and incorporated into the Babylonian Empire.

Frequently, human beings cannot resist drawing the sword and using force to defend themselves. Civilized states have suffered much from the attacks of wandering, pillaging nomads - Goths,  Huns, Vikings and Mongols. Small kingdoms and states must also resist being swallowed up by bigger states.  One of the more successful political entities to do so was ancient Assyria's New Empire, 912-612 BC. 

Assyrian cavalry relief, c. 700 BCE (British Museum)

Early Assyria had been an unremarkable Middle Eastern kingdom, often under the sway of Babylon. "New" Assyria built a powerful military establishment, developing horse cavalry units rather than relying on cumbersome chariots. This enabled Assyria to survive the tsunami of steppe raiders and "sea peoples" which wiped-out Mycenaean Greece, the Hittites in modern-day Turkey and nearly swamped once-mighty Egypt. According to Brooke, cooler temperatures and more rainfall favored the horse raiders and the likely spread of plague vectors similar to what occurred with the Mongols later during the Middle Ages. Assyria countered this grave threat and won.

Does this mean that we should extend a degree of sympathy to the New Assyrian Empire, given the narrow margin of survival which they faced? Ultimately no, for militarized Assyria became one of the most ruthless and blood-thirsty political states in history - and one of the least innovative once the nomad invaders had been driven off. In my 2014 Art Eyewitness review of the "Assyria to Iberia" exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I compared the sterile culture of the Assyrians with the immense creative achievements of the Phoenician city-states during the same period. 

In the case of the war-loving Assyrians, the image of the '''two edged sword" is literally true. But the law of unintended effect is equally appropriate to creative pursuits like the visual arts.

Fernández-Armesto writes movingly of the birth of art during the Paleolithic era. He notes that art painted or carved on the walls of cave shrines served a ritual purpose or as a record of hunting techniques. Much, indeed the majority, of art created around the time of the celebrated Chauvet Cave paintings, thirty thousand years ago, was religious in its intention, as human beings conceived and interpreted notions of divine powers and eternal life.

Not all prehistoric art was spiritually-motivated. Fernández-Armesto writes:

One of the reasons why humans make images of the objects they see is in an effort to understand them: understanding is inescapably prior to control. Like modern 'abstract' artists today, Ice Age predecessors tried to capture the key properties and patterns of the nature they observed, not to reproduce its exact appearance.

Note the words "understanding is inescapably prior to control." Humans created art to help them understand and control their natural environment and to conceptualize the unseen, but intuited, realm of divine beings. From there, it was but a step to using art as a means of understanding society, "prior to control" by some human beings over other, less favored men and women.

A richly bejewelled burial at Sunghir in Russia, dated to 28,000 years ago

Fernández-Armesto pauses in his survey of Paleolithic society to focus on an elite burial ground at Sunghir, near Moscow. The cemetery was found to contain the remains of an older man (shown above) and two children, dated to 28,000 years ago. The grave goods were staggering in their profusion and sophistication. Thousands of beads made from mammoth ivory,a necklace made of fox fangs and fur garments with fox teeth buttons were uncovered. One of the children, a boy of ten to twelve years, was buried with a spear or wand made from mammoth ivory.

Like the Egyptians, thousands of years later, these early "Russians" were well-equipped for the afterlife. But the spiritual connotation of these grave goods must also be interpreted from a political or societal perspective. These were privileged people, probably a clan or tribe leader and his children. Whoever they were, Fernández-Armesto is surely correct to identify them as members of an "Ice Age power class."

From that point, 28,000 years ago, the mutually reinforcing relationship of religion, politics and art shaped and determined the whole course of human existence. The discovery of the Sunghir grave goods in 1970 provided the earliest examples of the "trappings" of power.

In a later chapter of the Oxford book, dealing with the rise and crisis of modern culture, Paolo Luca Bernardini affirms that "the presence or absence of God is a key element in all spiritual, intellectual, and artistic work." Throughout history, Bernardini notes:

The arts constantly gave their account of the clash between mutability and eternity as they relate to the human world and the eternal God: through these representations, they justify their practice and express their deepest meaning. These conditions of mutability and visions of the world in which the sacred space plays a fundamental role plead in favor of the divine dimension of art. They suggest 'divine inspiration', as a human response to the same mystery of existence.

Japanese export pottery with VOC (Dutch East India Company) symbol

With brilliant (and disturbing) insight, Bernardini shows how a strain of atheism promulgated by radicals of the French Revolution spread throughout European cultural circles despite the eventual defeat suffered by the French Republic and its successor, Napoleon's empire. Later embraced in various forms by intellectuals all over the world, the belief that "God is Dead" has had staggering implications for humanity's creative impulses and emotional health.

A secularized perspective is now the dominant mode of thought and action in today's world, even in societies which profess strong belief in religious creeds. The critical turning point may have been earlier than the French Revolution of 1789. The chapter in the Oxford book dealing with the spread of global commerce following the voyages of "discovery" by Columbus, Vasco da Gama and others provides fascinating evidence for this crucial development.

"Exhibit A" is a porcelain plate made in Japan around 1660 for export to the Netherlands. Prominently placed in the center is the symbol of the Dutch East India Company. "VOC" stands for Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie. Although the Dutch were still a very pious people, by the 1660's many were equipping  or decorating their homes with nonreligious-themed products or pictures. Rembrandt's career took a fatal downturn around this time as his biblical paintings remained unsold.

A century before this, very few persons in Europe of any social standing, Protestant or Catholic, would have displayed a work of art or costly artifacts which lacked some reference to religion.  Even the Medici of Florence were careful to have themselves portrayed on the edges of paintings devoutly worshiping the Christ child in the manger.

"Envy is a weed," Cosimo de Medici (1389-1464) declared, "which should never be watered."

As long as human beings feared - or more importantly, believed in - God's judgment, then art and religion provided the inspiring belief systems which motivated the rise of Homo Sapiens to unprecedented achievements. Once corporate "brands" like "VOC" began to replace religious symbolism and spiritual ideals, humanity entered a new phase of existence.

Earth Lights, 1994, illustrated by Craig Mayhew and Robert Simmon, NASA

We now live in a "new world" of instant communication and individual gratification. The NASA illustration, Earth Lights, shows how widespread is the present state of the globalism, the latest man-made Utopia. Created in 1994 using data from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) and Operational Linescan System (OLS), the illustration shows "twinkling lights" which actually are "the locations of permanent lights on the Earth’s surface."

The dark spaces of Earth Lights also show how circumscribed is globalism. This is not a matter of civilization vs. barbarism, First World vs. Third World, but signifies instead how standards of certain regions cannot and should not be the measure for the whole planet.

The final chapters of The Oxford Illustrated History of the World have much to say - cogent and based upon the latest research - about the troubled condition of humanity. The epilogue of this magnificent book also reminds us that it is "the function of a prophet to be wrong..." 

Homo Sapiens, in the journey from Africa, survived by adapting not predicting, by problem-solving rather than pontificating. Felipe Fernández-Armesto and his team of all-star historians take the same measured approach. 

"The search for an ideal society," Fernández-Armesto counsels,"is like the pursuit of happiness: it is better to travel hopefully, because arrival breeds disillusionment."

***
Text: Copyright of Ed Voves, all rights reserved                                                                                           
Images courtesy of Oxford University Press, the British Museum (via Wikipedia) and the British Library.  The New Testament quote (Hebrews 4:12) is from the Douay–Rheims Bible 1899 American Version of the Holy Bible.

Introductory Image:
Book Cover. Courtesy of Oxford University Press,

A plough pulled by oxen from the Luttrell Psalter, c.1325-35. Plowing scene, r, f.170r, from the digitized manuscript of the Luttrell Psalter on the British Library website: (https://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=add_ms_42130_fs001ar

The skull of Homo Sapiens (left) compared to a Neanderthal skull. hairymuseummatt (original photo), Dr Mike Baxter (derivative work) / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 2.0 Courtesy of Oxford University Press

Buddhist Expansion to about 1300 CE.  Gunawan Kartapranata / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0 Courtesy of Oxford University Press

Assyrian cavalry relief,c. 700 BCE. Gypsum wall panel relief showing King Ashurbanipal and attendants hunting. From the Assyrian galleries of the British Museum.                                  https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/93/Exhibition_I_am_Ashurbanipal_king_of_the_world%2C_king_of_Assyria%2C_British_Museum_%2831033563287%29.jpg/1280px-Exhibition_I_am_Ashurbanipal_king_of_the_world%2C_king_of_Assyria%2C_British_Museum_%2831033563287%29.jpg

A richly bejewelled burial at Sunghir in Russia, dated to 28,000 years ago.
José-Manuel Benito Álvarez / Wikimedia Commons Courtesy of Oxford University Press

Japanese export pottery with VOC symbol, ca. 1660. Porcelain, underglaze blue (Arita ware):H. 2 3/8 in. (6 cm); Diam. 12 3/8 in. (31.4 cm); Diam. of foot (6 3/8 in. (16.2 cm). Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC. Dr. and Mrs. Roger G. Gerry Collection, Bequest of Dr. and Mrs. Roger G. Gerry, 2000 Accession Number:2002.447.40 Courtesy of Oxford University Press

The Earth at night, 1994, as illustrated by NASA scientists Craig Mayhew and Robert Simmon    Data courtesy Marc Imhoff of NASA GSFC and Christopher Elvidge of NOAA NGDC. Image by Craig Mayhew and Robert Simmon, NASA GSFC  Courtesy of Oxford University Press