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The Chinese have been continuously
creative in working jade for more than six thousand years - from the Neolithic
Hermadu culture (about 5000 BC) to the present. But China is hardly the only culture to place a high value on
jade.
Jade of one type or another is
found in Burma, Central America, Brazil, Canada, Japan, India, Siberia, Finland,
Tanzania, and elsewhere; in this country, it occurs in California as well as
in the northeastern and southwestern states. It is prized for its hardness,
glassy luster, and rich translucent colors. Colors vary from white to green, but there are
also red, yellow and lavender jades. In China, a clear emerald-green stone is valued most
highly. According to ancient legend, yu, as the jewel is known, came from the
holy mountains and was thought to be crystallized moonlight. In fact, jade came from along
the Silk Road.
Because jade is extremely hard,
it might have been tried early on for tools and weapons. But jade is also
brittle, and the forms that have survived appear to have been used for
symbolic, rather than utilitarian purposes. Jade clubs, for example, were
used to represent authority among the Maori. Knives, daggers, and scepters
were used in ritual or military ceremonies in China. Jade often possessed
not just symbolic but belief-system significance - as seems the case with
the mysterious bi discs and cong tubes found in Neolithic
Chinese grave sites (the former is a disc with a hole in the center, the
latter a tube that, in section, is square on the outside and round on the
inside). Centuries later, the corpses of high-ranking officials were clothed in
suits made of more than 2,000 thin slivers of jade sewn together with gold wire.
In ancient times, as today,
jade was also used for personal adornment. Jade rings, bracelets, pendants,
beads, and the like appear very early. Even today, the ring disk - a symbol of heaven - is still
worn as a talisman; jade bracelets are believed to protect against rheumatism in some regions of
China. Exceptional artistic effects can be
achieved with jade - outside of Asia, some of the most stunning work was
created by Central American artists of Olmec, Toltec, and Mayan cultures.
Still, no culture can rival China for the breadth, depth, richness, and
variety of work in this medium.
"Jade" is really several stones -
or at least that is the usage of the Chinese word, yu, which was
applied even to stones such as serpentine and aventurine that are no longer
considered types of jade. The English word jade is properly applied
to two distinct stones: nephrite and jadeite. Nephrite, either from local
sources or imported from central Asia, was almost the only jade used by the
Chinese until around the time of the American revolution when jadeite was
introduced from Burma.
Although quite different in
mineralogical composition, the two stones share many qualities. A milky,
soft-colored stone, nephrite is a calcium and magnesium silicate with a
tightly bonded, fibrous structure. It is usually white green or violet but
can be other colors as well. Jadeite, a sodium and aluminum silicate, comes
in more colors, ranging in tone from white to gray and in hue from yellow-orange
to violet. But it is best known for the bright green of the highly polished
form that is favored for jewelry, where it is cherished for its high luster.
Jade's spectrum of colors is the result of trace elements - such as magnesium
in green jade or iron in jades with a yellowish hue - mixed in with the snowy
white of the pure mineral.
- by the Education Department of the Asian Art Museum
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