亀形陶硯かめがたとうけん

  • 中国
  • 中国・後漢時代
  • 1-3c
  • 灰陶製
  • H-10.5 W-18.8

 仰韶文化などの彩陶の上に描かれた図案を見ると,中国の筆の使用は新石器時代にさかのぼることがわかる。しかし硯を必要とする墨の始まりはわかっていない。初期の硯として多く見られるのは円形三足で,研石をもって墨丸を磨り潰し墨汁を作った関係から、硯面は平面をなしていた。現在広く使用されている形の墨の登場はさらに時代が下り、知られる限りでの最古の例は前漢墓から見つかっている。

Catalogue Entry

Inkstones were essential to the art of the brush in early China and were often fashioned in auspicious zoomorphic shapes. This inkstone is ceramic and in the shape of a tortoise, with the dome-shaped shell serving as a lid that could be turned over and used as a bowl in which solid ink was crushed. A shallow, concave receptacle for mixing water and ink is hollowed out in the slab that is shaped like a tortoise's body, and traces of ink remain on its surface. Numerous ceramic inkstones of the Han period were fashioned in the form of a tortoise with a removable shell.1

The Shumei tortoise is very naturalistic, with the artist rendering all the creature's essential characteristics. On the shell, there is an grid pattern of indented hexagons surrounded by a band of alternate groups of vertical and horizontal parallel lines. Wrinkles on the animal's sturdy legs suggest a first-hand study of anatomy.

In China, the tortoise has been considered an auspicious animal since Neolithic times, and their shells used for divination. The creature was often depicted on early ceramics and bronzes, such as the wonderful example on the base of the bronze you vessel in the Shumei collection (cat. no. 78). The tortoise was regarded as a model of the cosmos,2 its body symbolizing the earth and its shell the domed heavens. It also has associations with longevity and with water, both of which made it especially appropriate for the shape of an inkstone for the mixing of water and ink by a scholar.3
HI


1. Wenwu 1964.1, pp. 49-52, fig. 4.1-.2.
2. For a discussion of early tortoise symbolism and motifs see Allan 1991, pp. 103-8, 110, 168-70.
3. Ibid., pp. 69-70.

1
119, Chinese tortoise inkstone entry, file "119-ent.doc" 11-Sep-97

解説(春の玉手箱)

 この灰陶の亀形硯は山形にたっぷりと盛り上がった甲羅を蓋とし,首を斜め上方にまっすぐに伸ばす。しっかりと全体を支える足は後脚が迫り上がり,前方に向き、踏ん張っている。鼻先には丸く鼻穴があけられ,緩く結んだ口元とともに,微笑ましい表情を与えており、亀甲文の刻線の鋭さと好対照をなしている。内部は後脚によって持ち上がった後部を陸とし,低くなった前部は三日月形に仕切られ貯水池を作っている。硯面にはいまだに墨汁の痕跡が見られる。周代末から漢にかけて神仙思想が盛んになり、硯にも亀形のものが作られた。亀は古来から宇宙の支え手,宇宙の範型であり、底面が地を表す方形で,上方は天に模される穹隆する甲羅を頂いている。