In China, where a rich decorative art had
been flourishing for nearly a millennium, the western elements were
transformed according to Chinese aesthetic ideals and integrated into
the native art, thus producing hat is known as the Late Chou or Huai
Style. In Indo-China, where purely ornamental designs previously may
have been practically unknown, those introduced from the West were
adopted with very little change. There, a new, bronze-using civilization
arose, usually termed the lie Dun g-Son in northern Annam, the first
of its sites its sites which has been excavated. It flourished from
-an unknown date, possibly the 7th century B.C., until Tonkin and
North Annam became Chinese provinces in the 1st century A.D. Outstanding
among its products are bronze axes beautifully decorative bronze daggers
and battle axes, belt buckles, primitive bronze figures, and above
all large, magnificent bronze drums, covered with decorative designs
arid with representation or is of boats, of warriors wearing feather
head-dresses, and of festive seems relating to the cult of dead. Although
the style of the Dong-Son culture- and that of
Late Chon. China have;- many elements in common and dim are Loa certain
extent related, the former is by far simpler and lacks the more sophisticated
and more typically Chinese of die latter.
Both the Dong-Son and the Late Chon styles have deeply influenced
the art of the Indonesian peoples. They were introduced in the archipelago
in tile latter half of the first millennium B.C., together with
the art of casting tools, weapons, ornaments, and drums of bronze.
As far as tile present and still very imperfect state of our knowledge
allows us to judge, they seem to have been brought to the islands
not by large scale migrations of whole tribes, but rather by merchants,
artisans, and small groups of settlers from the coasts of Indo-China
and Southern China. The cultures of these groups trust have been
superior enough to impress the native population, but they were
not numerous enough to impose their languages. The whole process
may therefore be compared to that of the Hindu colonization which
occurred a few centuries later. |
