Color within Lioness and Cub

For this assignment I went to the Penn Museum. Their focus is on historical works, so some of the collections lacked color from the cultures lack of the use of pigments or from the fading or degradation of the piece. The African and Chinese art held the most vibrant color pallet.  African art consisted mainly of prismatic, neon colors, where Chinese art contained contrast in moodier hues contrasted next to metallic gold. The specific collections are not from the same time period, so they cannot be compared to which geographical areas developed what colors first, but the brief sampling of art within the museum does give a brief idea to what colors different cultures utilized and how they utilized them. African art dealt more with fabric dying and the creation of useful goods where Indian dealt more with religious and Greek more with government. The color pallets of the varying areas are the colors found within the areas in which these people live. The bolder colors make sense within the equatorial location of parts of Africa. India has yearly monsoons, which would provide explanation for the moody colors found in the work.

            The specific piece that I chose was The Lioness and Cub done in the seventeenth century during the Quing dynasty. The color was created through a process of cloisonné in which metal wires are soldered onto the figure, enclosing a space. Then enameling is melted into these individual enclosures. Different colors are created through different colors of enameling. This process demonstrates color being extremely pre-planned. Like in frescos, there was no redoing or recoloring of the sculpture. Most of the piece was covered with blue enameling, but some areas, such as the collar and the base, which is not pictured well above, have high detailing in bold, prismatic colors. The piece’s main focus is on shape and texture. Color is utilized to block out large sections of color within the framework of the cloisonné, like color blocking. In works to create a base for the sculptural details in which the drama of the cloisonné and the textural elements such as in the main of the lion. The eyes are not pure white and give the sense that the color has faded or is dirty. If it is true that the whole statue is deepened in tone from its original coloration, it would give a different interpretation of Chinese use of color than what this piece portrays.

            Within the Penn Museum, the Lioness and Cub statue is displayed inside a room with large Chinese wall paintings and other Eastern art.  It flanks a doorway along with a similar statue of a male lion. These statues would have normally stood in the door way of an Indian temple. It is a grey stone room in which the curators have placed backdrops behind sculptural pieces that enhance the piece. The Lioness and Cub sculpture has a prismatic blue background which emphasizes the tones and shades present within the sculpture. The white of the door frame, which was not placed there on purpose, still adds to the piece by providing a contrast to the faded white of the eyes. The stone wall to the left of the statue does not accentuate any aspect of the piece and the texture of the brick work may detract attention from the cloisonné enameling because of the thicker line of relief in the mortar.

             I chose this piece because of the use of enameling on such a large sculptural object. During my last semester of art history most enameling was very small scale because of its intensive process. It also reminded me of the intimidating but awkwardly cute Stich from Lelo and Stich.