试论青铜时代透空青铜器的工艺特色——兼谈失蜡铸造问题

A Preliminary Study of Technical Features of Openwork Bronzes from Bronze Age China and a Brief Discussion on Lost-Wax Casting

春秋战国时期是青铜范铸工艺发展的新阶段,极具特色的繁复透空青铜器成为这一时代的典型代表。透空一词主要强调这类青铜器的空间结构特点。透空青铜器的雏形可追溯到西周中期,经过春秋战国时期的发展,到战国中晚期达到鼎盛,器物型制和附饰与楚文化青铜器相似,是在陶范铸造青铜器的基础上发展起来的。透空青铜器纹饰区都存在分型面,是陶范铸造技术范面修饰的延伸和发展,与失蜡铸件的软模根本不同。透空青铜器纹饰单元的小孔、交织的铜梗等,是范铸工艺的创新性运用。湖北随州文峰塔东周墓铜盘附饰中的铜梗,其表面褶皱并非失蜡铸造的直接证据,而是典型范铸工艺中内腔流铜不畅的表现,是因为泥芯上流铜腔道过长或弯曲过多,与失蜡铸造无关。先秦透空青铜器从简单到复杂,循序渐进地发展,是对范铸工艺的继承和创新。

Itwas in the Spring and Autumn period thatpiece-mould casting entered a new era,as highlighted by complicated openwork bronzes. The word ＂openwork＂ stresses the space structure of these bronzes. Openwork bronzes could be traced to the middle Western Zhou dynasty. After full developmentduring the Eastern Zhou, openwork bronzes reached a high pointby the mid-to-late Warring States period. Similar in style and decoration to bronzes from the Chu state, openwork bronzes developed from piece-mould casting. Unlike lost-wax casting, decoration parts of openwork bronzes have parting faces, a resultof the developmentof mould modifying technology. Pit-shaped holes in the decoration parts and interlaced metal stalks of openwork bronzes are the outcomes of pioneering piece-mould casting. The wrinkled surface on the interlaced metal stalks of a bronze plate, excavated from an Eastern Zhou tomb atWenfengta, Suizhou, Hubei province, is notthe evidence for lost-wax casting butthe cooling performance of the intermittentliquid bronze because of long or curved casting cavity. The developmentfrom being simple to complication of openwork bronzes in the pre-Qin period reflects the continuation and innovation of piece-mould casting