May 1, 2024
A Feast for the Eyes: Images of Banqueting in the Arts of China
Zoe Kwok
Associate Curator of Asian Art, Princeton University Art Museum
A Feast for the Eyes: Images of Banqueting in the Arts of China
Zoe Kwok
Associate Curator of Asian Art, Princeton University Art Museum
Introducer: Marge D'Amigo/Speaker:Zoe Kwok
Minutes of the 28th Meeting of the 82nd Year
President John Cotton called the meeting to order.
There were 120 attendees, including six guests: Marge D’Amico brought Richard Meyer, Richard Fernandez brought Anders Boss, Kathy Aleš brought Anna Dombrowski, Al Kaemmerlen brought Carol Smith and John Konvalinka, and Dan Haughton brought Tom Scott.
Julie Denny read the minutes of the previous meeting.
John Cotton read notes prepared by Marge D’Amico to introduce the speaker, Zoe S. Kwok, the Nancy and Peter Lee Curator of Asian Art at the Princeton University Art Museum. Her topic, “A Feast for the Eyes: Images of Banqueting in the Arts of China,” began as her Princeton University doctoral thesis and culminated in an exhibition for the museum in 2019/2020, closing just before the pandemic forced the closure of the entire museum.
Ms. Kwok began by offering us a two-course feast: The first course to address how and why feasting became so integral with art production in China, and the second, to provide examples of its continued importance during the 10th – 14th centuries.
Archeological evidence from the second to first millennia BCE shows the outsized role that feasting played during the Bronze Age. Feasts served to forge, strengthen, and commemorate relationships and alliances, both institutional and personal, and to engage different communities at various levels of exclusivity. A period of enormous wealth concentrated at the highest levels of society created an inordinate demand for luxury items that prompted significant artistic achievement and technical inventions in bronze, ceramic, jade, lacquer, and silk.
Images of glazed stoneware vessels dating from 14c BCE show the tastes and preferences of the early elite. The use of text as embellishment on early vessels would later transform early Chinese script; sophisticated techniques of high-fired ceramics would lead to the manufacture of porcelain on an industrial scale, transforming imperial China into a global economy.
Additionally, feasts offered venues for artists to perform, to demonstrate particular skills, and to find patronage. The desire for musical entertainment inspired the creation of new instruments, and dancing, too, became an impetus for patrons to support the performing arts.
Feasts have long been associated with ancestor worship and the funerary rituals at the core of early Chinese religious thought. Images of tombs from the late Bronze Age show extraordinary vessels cast specifically for burial along with myriad other banqueting apparatus -- all intended to satisfy the ritual needs of the deceased in the afterlife. Vessels were often filled with meat, grain, seeds, fruits, fish, and alcohol, to serve as offerings to the ancestors whose transformed spirits in the afterlife were believed to intercede with the gods on matters of vital concern to their descendants. Such practice drew together multiple generations of lineage creating a community based on the eternal presentation of food and drink.
During 10th -14th centuries, a period of intense political turmoil accompanying the rise and fall of three dynasties, the focus on the elite tomb as a major site for art declined, and art became more directed towards the enjoyment of living.
Three examples of the continued importance of feasting during this period were offered:
Our two-course feast was thus concluded; I trust that we all were sated.
Respectfully submitted,
Marsha Levin-Rojer
There were 120 attendees, including six guests: Marge D’Amico brought Richard Meyer, Richard Fernandez brought Anders Boss, Kathy Aleš brought Anna Dombrowski, Al Kaemmerlen brought Carol Smith and John Konvalinka, and Dan Haughton brought Tom Scott.
Julie Denny read the minutes of the previous meeting.
John Cotton read notes prepared by Marge D’Amico to introduce the speaker, Zoe S. Kwok, the Nancy and Peter Lee Curator of Asian Art at the Princeton University Art Museum. Her topic, “A Feast for the Eyes: Images of Banqueting in the Arts of China,” began as her Princeton University doctoral thesis and culminated in an exhibition for the museum in 2019/2020, closing just before the pandemic forced the closure of the entire museum.
Ms. Kwok began by offering us a two-course feast: The first course to address how and why feasting became so integral with art production in China, and the second, to provide examples of its continued importance during the 10th – 14th centuries.
Archeological evidence from the second to first millennia BCE shows the outsized role that feasting played during the Bronze Age. Feasts served to forge, strengthen, and commemorate relationships and alliances, both institutional and personal, and to engage different communities at various levels of exclusivity. A period of enormous wealth concentrated at the highest levels of society created an inordinate demand for luxury items that prompted significant artistic achievement and technical inventions in bronze, ceramic, jade, lacquer, and silk.
Images of glazed stoneware vessels dating from 14c BCE show the tastes and preferences of the early elite. The use of text as embellishment on early vessels would later transform early Chinese script; sophisticated techniques of high-fired ceramics would lead to the manufacture of porcelain on an industrial scale, transforming imperial China into a global economy.
Additionally, feasts offered venues for artists to perform, to demonstrate particular skills, and to find patronage. The desire for musical entertainment inspired the creation of new instruments, and dancing, too, became an impetus for patrons to support the performing arts.
Feasts have long been associated with ancestor worship and the funerary rituals at the core of early Chinese religious thought. Images of tombs from the late Bronze Age show extraordinary vessels cast specifically for burial along with myriad other banqueting apparatus -- all intended to satisfy the ritual needs of the deceased in the afterlife. Vessels were often filled with meat, grain, seeds, fruits, fish, and alcohol, to serve as offerings to the ancestors whose transformed spirits in the afterlife were believed to intercede with the gods on matters of vital concern to their descendants. Such practice drew together multiple generations of lineage creating a community based on the eternal presentation of food and drink.
During 10th -14th centuries, a period of intense political turmoil accompanying the rise and fall of three dynasties, the focus on the elite tomb as a major site for art declined, and art became more directed towards the enjoyment of living.
Three examples of the continued importance of feasting during this period were offered:
- Dining in the Afterlife
- Ladies Banqueting in Seclusion
- Gentlemen Feasting as Scholarly Business
Our two-course feast was thus concluded; I trust that we all were sated.
Respectfully submitted,
Marsha Levin-Rojer