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080 2) But my vacation was over and since then I have had no time to think about my own work until now. Professor Karlgren shows in this article various stages of development on several types of weapons from Anyang, non of which revoresent a "first phase" of the Chinese Bronze Åge but presuppose a long previous evolution. The evidence of evolutionary stages in China itself clearly puts an end to t...
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080 2) But my vacation was over and since then I have had no time to think about my own work until now. Professor Karlgren shows in this article various stages of development on several types of weapons from Anyang, non of which revoresent a "first phase" of the Chinese Bronze Åge but presuppose a long previous evolution. The evidence of evolutionary stages in China itself clearly puts an end to the treory of the great majority of Western experts in the field that tne Chinese Bronze Age weanons were the importation of finished products in China from the West (from Siberia in particular). I personally was especially interested in the discussion and illustrations of knives, daggers and axes adorned with animal handles, tre animals being for a great part of a very vital type. I had already seen a few of the Anyang knives at the Royal Ontario Museum two years ago and was then very interested to know how the Royal Ontario Museum might date them. Bishop White observed that the knives had not yet been catalogued and that therefore I ought not to include them in my study of the animal style. Now Professor Karlgren says that the "inward-curving knife with animal head must have existed in Anyang at a very early date since it has given rise to several long processes of develooment all of which they had passed through before the fall of the Yin." (I am sorry not to be able to quote correctly, since, as said before, Mr, Karlegren!'s article is not available here at Yale and I am quoting out of memory). On the ground of his findings it seems that Professor Karlgren is now ready to oppose certain scholars who still maintain that the Scythian and Siberian bronze age art was earlier than that of China, Professor Karlgren says that even if the Russian scholar Teplouhov!s 1929 classification of the Kara-Suk civilisation (Bronze Age, Siberia) postadate as of 1000 B.C. should be correct this civilisation would still post-date the Chinese early Bronze Age, In the meanwhile Teplouhov!s 1929 classification of animal headed knives among the Kara-Suk civilisation has been attacked, on a very sound basis IT believe, by J.H, Gaul, in "Observations on the Bronze Age in the Yenisei Valley, Siberia" (Studies in the Anthropology of Oceania and Asia /Papers of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology/ Harvard University, XX, Cambridge, 1943). I wonder whether Professor Karlgren is acquainted with this paper. Much to my deep regret I found out upon inquiry that Dr. Gaul, a young Harvard scholar, was killed during this war. Mr. Gaul held that neither Dr. Merhart's classification, which Teplouhov had made a starting point for his own work, nor Professor Kisselew!s renort of 1928, nor lr, Teplouhov!s own 1927 classification had included the animal- heåded knives among the Kara-Suk tomb finds, (Merhart had mentioned them as stray finds) and that therefore the sudden inclusion in 1929 was completely arbitrary. It must be regretted that several articles connected with the animal style and published since 1929 relied in their dating on Mr, Teplouhov!s classification of the Siberian animal headed knives as of 1000 B.C. My own study concerning the
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088 5) Much of my Chinese comparative material came from Professor Karlgren's photo material in his earlier publications, some of my material came from Professor Karlbeck's publications. I had to pick...
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088 5) Much of my Chinese comparative material came from Professor Karlgren's photo material in his earlier publications, some of my material came from Professor Karlbeck's publications. I had to pick out details in order to prove my points. I knew that the animal representations on the ritual vessels were but a substitute for what I really wanted; the animal heads on daggers, knives or horse trappings would have been much elearer and less complex. But the bronze vessels offered an advantage which no other objects had, they were dated, and it was paramount to prove beyond doubt that the Chinese representations with the unique common traits antedated the Scythian representations. You see I had to fight singlehanded against an almost overpoweringly strong tradition that the West had given China its animal style (Zoltan v. Takacs, Professor Pelliot, Professor Yetts, Bishop White had never attempted a comparative study, nor was Paul Reinecke able to go beyond suggestions). If felt quite clearly while writing my dissertation that there must have existed simultaneously with the ritual art of China a lay art which must have brought out the animal motifs much more forcefully than the ritual art does. I say so on p.126 of my dissertation: "I do not believe that the nomadic artist had the opvortunity to choose his motifs from such first rate work as the ceremonial vessels and weapons which I cited in my study of Scythian art. But in the present state of knowledge of Chinese archaeology we are indeed fortunate to be able to use as comparative material the first rate Chinese art preserved in royal tombs, by means of which we also obtain a reliable chronology. This material is at present our only source of knowledge, and from it we must draw our conelusions on a popular art in China which must have been coexistent with the court art and with which alone the nomads may have come in contact, In this oopular art such traits as we had to pick laboriously from among the selected first-rate bronzes may have been rendered at all times more naturalistically." You will understand my excitement when I read what Professor Karlgren says in his article "Some Weapons and Tools......" (again freely quoted): ".. later periods in the Chinese bronze art prove definitely that there was a marked contrast in style between the sacred, ritual art and the lay art" (which existed side by side) "and there is no reason why the same rule should not apply to the art of the Yin, where there were produced side by side sacred vessels in the ritual art style (styles A and B) and lay art like the specimens on knives and daggers, all executed by the same masters." I tried to prove in my dissertation, mainly with the help of the "jaw spiral" that the Siberian, the East Russian and the Perm art have the same elements inherent in them as the South Russian art has. In East Russia some of the motifs appear purer than in South Russia, although they are later. But also in South Russia
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389, Humphrey Street, New Haven 11, Conn. , as from Northrop Heuse, Smith College, Northampton, Mass. June 20, 1946. Dear Professor Ingholt, When you told me the other day that you might stop in Stock...
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389, Humphrey Street, New Haven 11, Conn. , as from Northrop Heuse, Smith College, Northampton, Mass. June 20, 1946. Dear Professor Ingholt, When you told me the other day that you might stop in Stockholm while in Europe this coming summer, I felt at once very anxious to ask you to visit the Museum of Far Eastern Antiauities and to look at the splendid early Chinese collection there and perhaps to try to meet some of the Museum!s scholars. I myself have longed for several years to visit there, Your infinite kindness at all times and your patience with present and past students gave me the confidence that, in soite of your preoccupation with more important things, you might still do me the great favour to stop at the Museum. I am particularly anxious for you to see Professor Bernhard Karlgren. Professor Karlgren is the greatest authooity on Chinesa antiquity. His dating of Chinese bronzes, on the basis of the Anyang finds, is probably the most important achievement in archaeological research of our time. From the reading of my dissertation you may have gathered how much I admire Professor Karlgren, both for his rare knowledge and for the unique brilliancy in presenting his difficult material. His analysis of motifs has been a continuous inspiration to me while I was doing my own work. Without Professor Karlgren!s newly established echronology for Yin, Yin-Chou and later Chou ritual bronzes I could never have attempted to prove the priority of the Chinese animal style over that of the Scythians. Two months ago I obtained in the Peabody Museum at Harvard volumes 13 - 17 of the Pulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, published between 1941 - 1945, volumes which then had jst come out from Sweden. My stay in Cambridge was too short to read through the bulletins. Here at Yale the Bulletins have not yet been received. I read, however, in Cambridge with particular interest Professor Karlgren's article in Bulletin £ 17 (1945) on "Some Weapons and Tools of tne Yin Dynasty," (np.101-144). Without wishing to appear immodest I confess I felt then that somewhere between Professor Karlgren!s previous writing and this article my own study on nomadie art had its place and I wanted to write Professor Karlgren at once.
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08 4) in contact with art centres where they were meaningless, had lost its awareness of their organic function. Considered in its earliest manifestations, the Scythian animal style has generall been ...
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08 4) in contact with art centres where they were meaningless, had lost its awareness of their organic function. Considered in its earliest manifestations, the Scythian animal style has generall been recognised as a nomadic hunters! art plus "something else", It was exactly this "something" which has given rise to much discussion, I am sure that Professor Karlgren is familiar with the standpoints of Professor Rostovtzeff, Professor Tallgren, Professor Borovka, Professor Minns, Professor Ebert, Professor Kuhn and Dr. Schefold (only to mention the most outstanding publications of the last twenty years). However, the striking peculiarities which I found in the Seythian archaic style were not traceable in any of the animal representations of the styles from which these gentlemen derived them, everything was based on hypothesis. Tnen I discovered the Anyang art which is entirely different from that Chinese art with which Professor Rostovtzeff once tried to compare Scythian art (Middle Chou). He had been on the right track but Anyang had not yet been discovered at that time nor had Professor Karlgren's writing been done. From Anyang came animal representation with corresovonding genetic conventions, conventions so peculiar that no two styles could have invented them separately. These conventions I made the basis of my study. Tne evidence was overwhelming. For instance: my strongest argument is the "jaw spiral", funetionally applied. This is what I mean by it: I found the "jaw spiral on most early Chinese animals! heads, from oracle bone animals to animals in stone sculpture, In early Scythlan art tne jaw sviral occurs on bird heads, on long snouted animal heads, on short snouted (feline?) heads. It is absent on deer heads and ram heads. But then also the few Chinese early deer representations lack the jaw spiral. The ram head in Scythian art, which appears only from the Öth century on, is already derived from the Near East. My second convention, also exclusively typical for Chines: and Scythian art was the” interchangeable ring- and clawfoot motif. Next came the "double rimmed mouth with outward curling edges." Then came the "foreward plodding" animal. The bird head seemed a combination of several elements. Common to the two arts alone is also the motif of the "double head joined at the jaw", and of course, "the curled up animal. K birds heads iustead &H he spira om many 68 r FRE fp Segthiau heads ave, I förutg believe, alvendg isiwterpre 7 hu jaw spivat.
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oi 6) and as far as Hungary (Fettich speaks of the "spiral at the base of the bird's head" as something evolved in the 5th century B.C.) and Rumania we find in individual cases the jaw spiral dom to t...
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oi 6) and as far as Hungary (Fettich speaks of the "spiral at the base of the bird's head" as something evolved in the 5th century B.C.) and Rumania we find in individual cases the jaw spiral dom to the Sth and even the 4th century B.C., however, always only on bronze horse trapoings most probably done by Scythian artisans who followed their artistic tradition, never on gold objects produced in Greek workshops. I found the Siberian style in spite of all contrary argument, derived from that of South Russia, This is particularly apparent in the incongruous application of the jaw spiral in a very pure form (the wooden carved deer from Katanda) at a relatively late date, sure Ta of the late inmigration from South Russia of the motif n eria. I do not know whether all this will interest Professor Karlgren. If it does, I would be happy to copy for him the part of my dissertation which is connected with the Scythian study and also send him photos of my drawings. Dr. Nickolay P. Toll who superintended my work after Professor Rostovtzeff had fallen 111, felt that I may have come elose to the truth, although he pointed out that there was a weakness in my conelusions because of the actual absence at present of that lay art in China which I assume to have directly ÄAnfluenced the nomadic artist. Last winter Professor Salmony was appointed editorial reader of my dissertation for the purpose of a possible Art Bulletin publication. Professor Salmony really did not say anything positive. But his objeetions were a) "an artificial isolation of certain minor motifs," b) a misdating of a Middle Chou objeet for an Early Chou object (which date I had unfortunately accenoted from the Freer Gallery people), and ec) the omittance of quoting H. Kähn's "Chronologie der Sino-Sibirischen Bronzen," Ipek 1938, which article I had read but not mentioned in my study because I felt that it missed the point. I was wrong in not discussing this article. The Art Bulletin people felt that Professor Salmony's silence on my theories in general had to be interpreted as an acknowledgement of their correctness. This is all. I hope that you will excuse this long epistle and forgive me for it, If in my keenest dreams I hope that you may discuss my work with Professor Karlgren and that he may have a comment on the plausibility of my theories it is because I have been very much alone in the development of my thoughts and theories and they need be chequed. Perhaps also I will have the courage,after you will have spoken to Professor Karlgren, to write him for some of the photdmaterial which he used in his article "Some Weapons and Tools..." because I would have to include some of his material in my publication of the dissertation. I pray that you may find your parents in good health and wish you, dear Professor Ingholt, a happy summer vacation. Your, Tersen Thinety
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os 3) origins of the Scythian animal style convinced me that the Siberian material must be later than the Scythian South Russian material, which first appears in South Russian tombs of the 7th century...
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os 3) origins of the Scythian animal style convinced me that the Siberian material must be later than the Scythian South Russian material, which first appears in South Russian tombs of the 7th century B.C. The date in the South Russian case is reliable beyond doubt through Greek vase finds together with Scythian material. Working from the Scythian South Russian angle in my study I came to conclusions similar to thoseexpressed in Mr. Karlgren's artiele on "Some Weapons and Tools .", led tnere, as said before, through Professor Karlgren's earlier publications on Chinese ritual bronze vessels. Professor Karlgren!'s knowledge of the Scythian animal style and the problems connected with it had of necessity to be limited. He has relied up to now on the findings of well known South Russian archaeologists, but is about to go beyond them. After I accepted Professor Rostovtzeff!s invitation to work under him on the origins of the Scythian animal style I spent two years with the study of publications and material of animal representations in art previous to the Scythian animal style. I went back to study prehistorical pottery, Sumerian, Babylonian, Minoan, Mycenaean, Ionian, Assyrian, Caucasian, Luristan, Doric Greek and Western European animal representations, the latter also from the neolithicum on. Of course I read all the publications directly connected with the Scythian animal style in South Russia, the related styles in East Russia, Siberia and Perm. It was evident to me all along that one would have to compare in particular the archaic Scythian art with all other animal representations in onets discussion of symptoms, for shortly afterward all sorts of influences weakened the style. I found in the first place (p. 32 of my study) that the pure Scythian style, as found in particular on bronze horse travvings and on bone objects of daily use, employed only a limited number of animal types and that the manner of representation was likewise limited to a certain number of conventions. Of these there was no evidence of an evolutionary stage among the tomb finds of South Russia, On the contrary, I was under the impression that the Scythian style even then had already reached a phase in which the original meaning of its conventions had begun to fade out of memory. Even in the earliest tombs I often saw representations witn definite misinterpretations of Scythian stylistic peculia ities and tnis even in cases in which there can be little doubt that a Scythian artist was at work, It is quite plain that Greek influence aquickened the process of deterioration, but had the Scythian art during these centuries preserved the capacity to continue creatively in its own tyvical style, the process of deterioration might not have been so quick nor so complete, I assumed either of the following possibilities - or perhaps both - might have accounted for this: 1) Scythian art being very ancient by the time it reached South Russia, the application of its conventions was no longer anything but a mechanical repetition; or, 2) Scythian art having been removed from a source of inspiration where its om artistic conventions had been practiced, and brought
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