rawson : ancestry of chinese bronze vessels

IN SUMMARY : a case study to demonstrate the change in values of ding bronze vessels in six periods of chinese culture. in the first period, the vessels equated with power and hierarchy in the deployment of the material itself, and in the inscriptions placed in the vessels. as religious beliefs shifted in the second period, ancient ding re-discovered fueled interest in the past. as opposition to buddhism rose in the third period, leaders re-appropriated the meanings of the vessels as symbols of the ancient past linked to their present, prompting rubbings of the vessels and widespread collecting. the bronzes had relatively little value in the fourth period, only to be re-discovered again in the fifth period at the fall of yet another dynasty. the objects became a means to co-opt the ancient societies and beliefs for use in the present. in the twentieth century, the symbolization of the bronzes turned outward from china to the world, prompting another appreciation of their longevity and slow-changing form/style/content.

FOR DISCUSSION : rawson suggests that the ancient chinese bronzes are in museum collections because we have "inherited an interest in them generated in the past and sustained by Qing scholars" (p. 69). how often is what we collect influenced by the past? how does re-appropriating that past impact the values and meanings embedded in everyday objects as well as extraordinary ones?