20 Chinese Art FRAGRANCE


FROM CHINA Incense Culture in Imperial China


Incense burner in form of duck, Bronze, Western Han dynasty (206 BC - AD9), Musée Cernuschi


pharmacopoeia of any civilisation: Tey


were aloeswood (garroo),


Incense burner fretted in copper and gilded with gold, Qing dynasty, Shanghai Museum


incense smoke to swirl around the peak like clouds of mist. Speculation about the meaning of the mountain continues unabated today. Tere are those who say it was a shamanistic notion separating heaven and earth. Te incense burner was a sacred


form of funerary furniture of which only a handful have survived the passage of time. Some appeared in zoomorphic forms. One of the earliest, a duck-shaped specimen from the Western Han dynasty (206 BC - AD 9), carries an opening on its back for escaping odours. Another Han incense burner contains a pair of birds, male and female, which were part of a sequence of sacred animals marking the cardinal points. Te bird symbolised the south; the tiger, the east; the dragon, the west; and the tortoise, the north. Te advent of Buddhism from


A Lady perfuming her Sleeves, detail, ink and colours on silk, 129.6 X 47.3 cm, Chen Hongshu (1598-1652), Ming dynasty, Shanghai Museum


By Yvonne Tan


In the West, incense is generally defined as ‘a gum infused with spices that produced a sweet smell and smoke when burned, and played an essential part in religious ceremonial rites’. In China, however, incense defies definition. Known generically by the word xiang, which could mean


‘fragrance, scent, aromatics, perfume, flavouring and spice’, it refers to a broad group of


substances which


came in different forms. Tey might be solid, powdery or blended; and included cones and coils which were lit


powder,


at the tip, or sticks of tindery all of which emitted a


fragrance upon burning. ‘Te culture of incense played a major role in Chinese civilisation,’ says Eric Lefebvre, director of the Musée Cernuschi, who has curated the exhibition, Fragrance from China: Incense Culture in Imperial China tracing its evolution from the 3rd century BC to the 19th century. ‘Te show, a special collaboration with the Shanghai Museum, was inspired by the current interest for incense in China. We know the French public would be fascinated by the subject as there is a new emphasis on the culture of scent now in France.’


ASIAN ART MARCH 2018


Tis exhibition of what is an unpublished subject has no precedent.


‘Fragrances are actually a new topic for us as museum practices are still dominated by visual culture,’ says Mr Lefebvre. ‘China has a 2000-year incense culture where the burning of incense was performed in many different


social contexts,


THE CULTURE OF INCENSE PLAYED A MAJOR ROLE IN CHINESE CIVILISATION AND WAS PERFORMED IN MANY DIFFERENT SOCIAL CONTEXTS


whether


sacred or profane, public or private. We have focused on its material and visual aspects spanning four major periods: Te Han (206 BC-AD220) to the Tang (618-906); the Song (960-1279) and the Yuan (1279- 1368); the Ming (1368-1644); and the Qing (1644-1911).’ ‘Each period moreover is


accompanied by a unique smelling experience,’ he goes on to say. ‘Frederic Obringer,


a sinologist


specialising in Chinese medicine and particularly perfumes, was asked to select and translate ancient incense formulas. We then approached the chief creator of perfumes at Parfums Dior, Francois Demachy, to recreate the fragrances and provide an olfactory experience of incense. Explanations regarding the composition of the fragrances are provided


to computers.’


Chinese incense was used since at least the Qin (221-206 BC) and


the public through


Han periods. Increased trade along the Silk Road during the Han saw


‘foreign’ fragrances such as sandalwood, camphor, benzoin and frankincense arriving in the country. Tey aroused much wonder since local products were considered ‘poor man’s incense’. At the time, Han scholar Cheng Xuan (127-200) described incense as


‘pastes’ whose constituents included aloe (garoo), putchuk (costus), clove, camphor, musk and wild honey. Te culture of incense went on


through the ages to sustain many types of artistic production. Archaeological evidence suggests its earliest vehicles were universal ‘hill censers’ or boshan xianglu; the word lu meaning ‘censer,


brazier, stove or


furnace’. Tey appeared in divination and liturgical practices intimately linked with the cult of the ancestors and the afterlife. Cast in bronze to resemble miniature mountain forms, they were fretted with holes to enable


around the 1st century played a critical part in China’s evolving incense culture. New liturgical and meditative practices were introduced to its temples and monasteries where burning incense was a form of reverence for deities: It purified the atmosphere of a temple space, preparing it for the assembly of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. Te most important object in a temple moreover was not the altar, but the incense burner sitting on it: Every liturgy started with its lighting and ended with a return to it. Indeed the Sanskrit word for temple is gandhakuti, which means ‘house of incense’. Te Buddhist religion brought


many innovations that were gradually introduced into Chinese secular life. Te incense time-keeping device was probably the most remarkable; it was first employed in monasteries as the graduated candle monks used at their vigils to tell the time of night. As the 6th-century poet Yu Jianwu (487- 551) tells us: ‘By burning incense, we know the hour of the night. With the graduated candle we confirm the tally of the watches’.


Buddhism attained new heights in


Tang China (618-906), when the burning of increasingly complex odoriferous material accompanied its rites. In 659, ‘six critical perfumes’ were singled out by the Xin Xiu Ben Cao,


‘Newly Reorganised Pharmacopoeia’ – the oldest official


frankincense, cloves, patchouli, elenni and liquid amber. Te poet Du Fu (712-770) described blended incense used in temples as a scented amalgam of a ‘hundred blend aromatics’ with odours smelling of the ‘exhalations of flowers’. Up to 42 types of incense and aromatics were later listed in a Tang encyclopaedia. Te great advances made by Tang shipbuilding and navigation enabled aromatics which had earlier arrived by land to reach China now by sea. Eighth- and 9th-century writings speak of ‘perfume merchants’ who sailed the Nanhai, ‘Southern Seas’ of southeast Asia, searching for resins, sandalwood,


aloeswood, camphor


and myrrh, among others. Enormous quantities of these perfumes were destined for the port of Canton (Guangzhou), known as ‘one of the great incense markets of the world’. Te culture of incense was not limited to China. It travelled along with the Buddhist religion to Japan where it was well-received. Te novelty of kneading different blends of incense was considered a great art and gave rise to ‘incense-guessing parties’ which became an intrinsic part of Heian (794-1185) court life. Tey were popular with the aristocracy and the cognoscenti, and were featured in the Tale of Genji by the Lady Murasaki Shikibu. Incense in China meanwhile was making the transition from the religious to the secular realm. Te scholar-officials, who governed the Song dynasty (960-1279),


had created a new moral order whose


Sancai incense burner, Jingdezhen, Qing dynasty, reign of Kangxi emperor (1662-1722), Shanghai Museum


Small incense box of Yaozhou celadon, Northern Song dynasty (960-1127), Musée Cernuschi


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