seem to promise a greater development than actually took
place. The colossal figures guarding the approach to the Ming tombs
(15th century) show that the national taste rapidly became conventional
and petrified so far as monumental sculpture was concerned, though
occasional examples of devotional or portrait sculpture on a smaller
scale in wood and ivory are found, which in power, grace, sincerity and
restraint can rank with the work of more gifted nations. Such pieces,
however, are extremely rare, and at South Kensington the ivory "Kwanyin
and Child" (274. 1898) is a solitary example. As a rule the Chinese
sculptor valued his art in proportion to the technical difficulties it
conquered. He thus either preferred intractable materials like jade or
rock-crystal, or, if he wrought in wood, horn or ivory, sought to make
his work curious or intricate rather than beautiful. There is,
nevertheless, beauty of a kind in Chinese bowls of jade, and there is
dignity in some of the pieces of rock-crystal, but the bulk of the
carving done in wood, horn and ivory does not deserve a moment's serious
thought from the aesthetic point of view. The few fine specimens may be
referred to the earlier part of the Ming dynasty when Chinese art in
general was sincere and simple. After the middle of the 15th century
there set in the taste for profuse ornament which injured all subsequent
Chinese work, and wholly ruined Chinese sculpture.

_Bronzes._--In Chinese bronzes we have a more consistent and exceptional
form of plastic art, which can be traced continuously for some three
thousand years. These bronzes take the form of ritual or honorific
vessels, and the archaic shapes used in the service of the prehistoric
religion of the country are repeated and copied with slight changes in
decoration or detail to the present day.

The oldest extant specimens, chiefly derived from the sack of the Summer
Palace at Peking, may be referred to the Shang and Chow dynasties
(1766-255 B.C.). These ancient pieces have a certain savage monumental
grandeur of design, are usually covered with a rich and thick patina of
red, green and brown, and are decorated with simple patterns--scrolls,
zigzag lines and a form of what is known as the Greek key-pattern
symbolizing respectively waves, mountains and storm clouds. The animal
forms used are those of the _tao-tieh_ (glutton), a fabulous monster
(possibly a conventionalized tiger) representing the powers of the
earth,