Chinese Furniture. Karen Mazurkewich

Chinese Furniture - Karen Mazurkewich


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table with plain spandrels and round legs. Horizontal braces are also used to stabilize the table. According to Lina Lin in her Taipei Museum catalogue, Special Exhibition of Furniture in Paintings, the purpose of the small spandrels and apron is to increase the strength of the mitered tongue-and-groove joints. Photo courtesy National Palace Museum of Taipei.

      Fig. 20 Table built in a traditional style with stretchers extending across the length and width, ca. fifteenth century, Shanxi province. This style, with its scepter-shaped feet, dates back to the Song dynasty. By the end of the Ming dynasty, the use of long stretchers between the legs disappeared as joinery techniques improved. The joinery at the top, allowing for corner indentations, is unusual. This is a good example of a softwood—huaimu (locust)—that is preserved in part due to its high density. Photo courtesy Cola Ma.

      Fig. 21 Painting table, zuomu (oak), Shanxi province. The table has been stabilized by floor stretchers. The legs are slightly bulging and the corners are indented, much like the archaic tables from the Song and Yuan dynasties. Photo courtesy Cola Ma.

      Fig. 22 “Morning Toilette in the Women’s Quarters,” attributed to Wang Shen (AD 1036–88). The long lacquered table has no braces and has scepter-shaped legs that were popular during the Song dynasty. A small bed screen with marble inlay is placed on the sleeping platform behind the standing woman.

      While not a perfect recipe, the laws governing carpentry as described in this ancient text are rooted in ritual and superstition. There were auspicious days to fell trees or lay foundations, as well as special prayers, lucky charms and tricks to neutralize sorcery. Certain measurements were deemed favorable. For example, a table 1 chi 6 cun (which represents 1½ feet in Chinese measurement and is today’s standard’s half meter) wide, corresponds to the measurement symbols that represent “white” and “wealth.” Some increments represent good, while others bring about illness and harm. Bound by such rigid doctrine, carpenters were rather exacting with their rulers.

      While the Lu Ban was obviously intended as an architectural guide, roughly one-third of its text is devoted to furniture design. The techniques used to create the angles, curves and joinery to build chairs and tables were adapted and refined from the principles applied to construct halls and homes. Even the decorative motifs found on partitions and banisters are replicated on table spandrels and chair panels. The origins of the Lu Ban are unknown, but scholars speculate that the section on furniture may have been supplied by the foreman of a large carpentry factory who kept an inventory of measurements. The existence of large production centers might explain why furniture proportions deviated little and standardization prevailed.

      The center of production was Beijing, where the Imperial Palace workshops were situated. The provinces of Guangdong and Jiangnan (the region which now comprises Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Shanghai) were also major centers of furniture production, in particular the cities of Guangzhou and Suzhou. Suzhou was considered the cultural capital of China in dynastic times. It flourished as a trading and silk center in the early sixth century, but reached its apogee during the Ming and early Qing. While it was linked with the capital through the Grand Canal, it was far enough away from the political epicenter to be less conservative. Many officials and scholars purchased and planned their garden-residences here as retreats for their retirement years.

      Although each region favored different styles, there was an enormous amount of cross-pollination among carpenters, which explains the systematization of measurements and styles during the Ming era. This has been attributed to the strict taxation scheme of the early Ming emperors, who regularly called upon the services of carpenters in lieu of payment of taxes. Tradition dictated that carpenters living in the capital were required to work in the palace workshop ten days each month, while those from other parts of the country worked three months every three years. This excessive form of tax was relaxed by the mid-fifteenth century, as artisans paid tax rather than serve time.

      Carpenters in the region retained a relationship with the imperial workshops even after the Manchurian invaders ousted the Han Chinese and formed the Qing dynasty in 1644. For example, during the Qianlong era (AD 1736–96), a satellite workshop of the Imperial Palace opened in Guangzhou in order to make Southern-style furniture for the emperor.

      Fig. 23 The main hall of the Feng family residence in Lang-zhong, northeastern Sichuan province, decorated as it would have been in the early twentieth century when the family occupied it.

      Fig. 24 Kang table with flush-side corners and vigorous horseshoe feet more typical of the Ming dynasty, red lacquer on jumu (southern elm), eighteenth century. Photo courtesy Albert Chan.

      Fig. 25 During the Qing dynasty, carpenters designed higher and squarer feet.

      Fig. 26 Classical simianping (four sides flat) side table or qin table, the legs terminating in inverted ruyi which are often seen in Ming paintings but are rarely found in furniture, ca. seventeenth century, Shanxi province. The frame is made of huaimu (locust) and the top panel is of wutong wood, a type usually reserved for the production of musical instruments. This means the table was probably used as a stand to play music. Photo courtesy Cola Ma.

      Fig. 27 This side table with humpback stretchers is more representative of later Ming-style furniture with the vigorous low hoof and flat apron. Photo courtesy Charles Wong.

      Fig. 28 Square-corner cabinet, yumu (northern elm), eighteenth century, Shanxi province. The decorative door panels, which are typical of the mid-to late eighteenth century, feature a coin-patterned lattice design. The large horizontal panel of this cabinet features five bats in clouds carved in relief, while the base apron is dressed with dragons and a longevity character. Collection of Cola Ma.

      Fig. 29 Window screen with animal motifs, including bats, changmu (camphor), nineteenth century, Hubei province. Photo courtesy Oi Ling Chiang.

      Fig. 30 Detail of carving. Photo courtesy Andy Hei.

      Throughout the centuries, stylistic innovation occurred gradually. The horse hoof evolved from a vigorous low foot in the sixteenth century to a high, square-shaped one in the nineteenth century; the curvilinear aprons of the early Ming were exchanged for straighter aprons, and propitious symbols such as the dragon became more elongated, heavier and less animated (Figs. 24–27).

      The most radical style change, however, occurred in the mid-Qing dynasty when the Emperor Qianlong’s taste for ornate carvings percolated from the imperial workshops in Beijing out to the regions (Fig. 28). As Curtis Evarts points out, Qianlong’s taste for the ornate did not revolutionize furniture styles throughout the kingdom, but added another dimension to traditional styles.

      Three hundred years later, the stylistic changes introduced by the Qing rulers were considered a step backwards by Western collectors. It was felt that the natural fluidity of line espoused by the Ming élite was sacrificed on the altar of symbolic decoration. Fussy carvings of dragons, qilin and bats interfered with the profile (Figs. 29, 30). In addition, furniture became weightier, aprons larger, curves tighter, and the back splats on chairs more vertical.


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