Du message à l'image : le décor des bronzes Shang et Zhou, XVe-IIIe s. av. J.-C.

摘要

In this article, the writer intends to study some of the changes that appeared in the evolution of Chinese art between ca 1500 BC and 221 BC. Here are analyzed the artistic themes of that period and the ways by which these themes were expressed by artists. Four points are reviewed, which correspond to four succeeding steps in the general evolution. 1) The relationship between writing, images and signs during the Shang period is first studied. Their respective languages appear to be very distinctive from each other not only in their ways of representing things and beings, but also in the subjects they illustrate. 2) Around the middle of the Western Zhou period (ca. 1050-771 BC) interlace was created by artists. Its use was accompanied by a simplification of the motifs. Following this dramatic change, the iconic mode of representation that had been developed by the Shang artists during centuries suddenly disappeared. 3) In Chinese art, pictorial decoration was created rather late, during the fifth century BC. Along with this new mode of representation, artists started to represent three-dimensional space on a flat surface (or the surface of a vessel) and found various solutions to achieve this challenge. They likewise began to introduce images of nature in art. By the fourth century BC, the portrait appeared. 4) Finally, during the fourth century BC, the artists developed a new mode of decoration based on optical games. More precisely, while using special artistic means that implied a double reading of the decors, they introduced movement and dynamism in the surface decoration.