This is the beginning of Chinese civilization. By civilization, we mean this is the time China started to have writing and the cities at this time started to appear. And we're talking about 1500 B.C. and after. The first Chinese dynasty, so far as we know, or the first political state in China, was the Shang Dynasty. One distinctive feature of the Shang Dynasty were the bronzes.

The Chinese bronzes was cast by a piece mode technology. This is very different from Western art. In early Western art, most of the bronzes were cast by lost wax. For the early Chinese bronze casters to cast a bronze, they first would like to make a model. The model could be made of clay, or it could be wood, then they would pack clay around this model. And when the clay is about half dry, then they would cut this clay into several parts to remove it from the model. And this will become the mold. When they want to cast a bronze, they would put the mold together. When they pour the bronze in, then they will get the bronze vessels.

So there are two basic elements or two basic features about early Chinese bronzes. They have relatively simple shapes, but they have very elaborate, very intricate surface decoration. And this is what the Chinese casting technology did to the Chinese art.