More than 2000 years ago, artisans of the earliest Chinese dynasties raised the art of metal sculpture to its highest point.

The unique sense of vigor and fullness of bronzes of Shong (triumphantly imitated in many instances by the ensuing Cho, Ch'in and Han dynasties) became ideals that future generations, not only of sculptors, but also of potters, hoped but never quite succeeded to emulate.

In the style that many modern abstractionist would have loved to possess, ancient Chinese masters made tortoises, dragons, horses, goats, flowers and human faces and bound the surfaces of wine jugs, basins, ceremonial urns with these contorted beings:

Pure forms that the universal heart never fails to respond to and yet, to those who have learned to recognize it, also robustly proclaim Chinese spirit.