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- lofty tradition of art passed to them by the Tang and brought it to full fruition.
Collecting of jades during the Song was done on two levels: imperial and private. The Song emperor, Huizong (1100-1126), is famous for his antiquarian interests and played an important role as a patron of the arts. If the huge number of ancient ritual bronzes in his collection (said to be ten thousand)'4 is any indication, he must have had an extensive collection of ancient jades as well.
The other category of collector was the literati or scholar-officials, who probably collected jade for its appealing surface and subtle colouring, but above all out of a deep reverence for the past. Song scholars had an enlightened attitude to the an�tiquities and were engaged in research concerned with the identification, ety�mology, dating and interpretation of ancient bronzes and jades. As a result many scholars became collectors and connoisseurs of ancient bronzes and jades, and compiled illustrated manuals on their findings. Among the most prominent of these archaeological catalogues are the Kaogu Tu written in 1092 by Lu Dalin, the Xuanhe Bogu Tulu� a catalogue of bronzes collected by the Song emperor, Huizong, and
the Guyu Tupu (Illustrated Catalogue of Ancient Jades) supposedly listing the ancient jades in the collection of the Song emperor Xiaodong (1163-1190) in 100 chapters referring to over 700 pieces. (The latter is questionable as it was not published until 1712.)
This genuine concern for ancient artifacts by the imperial court and the scholar class during the Song period must have spawned an interest in the jade carving circles to copy the ancient styles and shapes, which were illustrated in these man�uals. The copying of ancient forms is called archaism and was the direct result of the great intellectual interest in the classical antiquity of China. A large number of archaistic bronze forms in jade, which are found in Western collections, have been attributed to the Song period and to the succeeding Yuan, Ming and Qing periods.
In the case of the Song, they made a conscious effort to imitate the ancient shapes of jades and bronzes of the late Zhou and early Han periods.
Besides archaism, another artistic interest taken up by Song jade carvers was that of naturalism. Many contemporary examples of Song decorative arts and painting seem to have been profoundly affected by the realism of the natural world, and no doubt there was a parallel development in jade. Many realistic jade sculp�tures of animals, birds and plants have the same carefully observed form and me�ticulous detail as characterized by some of the landscape and bird-and-flower paintings of the period.
The Song literati set a trend by patronizing the arts, whether it be painting, or minor arts like bronzes, ceramics and jades. It was very fashionable from this time onwards for scholar-officials to collect jade objects for their desks, such as paper weights, brushpots, armrests and small fumble pieces.
Song jades were notable for their use of a technique known as qiaose or making effective use of the different colours in the jade-stone to distinguish different parts of the carving. This intuitive sensing of incorporating the colours into the final design was a special talent of the Song jade carvers. They have also been credited with inventing the stunning artistry of carving jade in several layers of undercut relief.'5
It is stated in Song historical records that there was a glut of jade on the market starting in 951, which caused the price of jade to decline to about one-third its value. This glut, which was probably caused by stable conditions along the trade route, lasted until about 1028 when a Tangut dynasty called Xi Xia, situated near the bend of the Yellow River, began to cause trouble along China�s northwestern border. Apparently little jade came into China until about 1077 when the trade
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