West & Central Asia Study Guide

• South, East, and Southeast Asia art dates from 300 B.C.E. - 1980 C.E.
• West and Central Asia art dates from 500 B.C.E. - 1980 C.E.

Art Influences

• Art making is influenced by available materials and processes.
• Culture, beliefs, and physical settings of a region play an important role in creation and subject matter.
• Art making can be influenced by audience, function, and patron.
• Cultural interaction through war, trade, and travel can influence art.
• Asian art is influenced by global trends, and it influences global trends.

Indian Art

• Is among the oldest in the world with the longest continuous tradition.
• Employs a wide range of materials including ceramics and metal.
• Is distinctive, known for the development of Buddhist stupas.
• Extensively employs stone and wood carving.
• Specializes in wall and manuscript painting.
• Tapestry is a specialty.
• Has a rich tradition of depicting mythical and historical subjects.
• Is generally religious.

Features of India

• The Indus Valley civilizations were among the most advanced for their time.
• Cultural centers became the home of great civilizations and dynasties.
• Some of the world's greatest philosophies and religions developed in India.
• Early Indian religions often separated the cosmic realm from the earthly realm.
• Hinduism and Buddhism adopted this world view.
• Indian religions generated unique artistic expressions, such as the Buddhist stupa and the Hindu temple.
• Buddhism, Hinduism, and Jainism are image-friendly religions.
• Trade routes connected Asia.
• Christianity and Islam have had a dramatic impact on the arts.
• The fertile Indus and Ganges valleys became a history of invasions and assimilations.
• Indian life today is a layering of disparate populations to create a cosmopolitan culture.
• There are eighteen official languages in India-Hindi is spoken natively by only 20% of the population.
• In addition to Hindus and Muslims, there are concentrations of Jains, Buddhists, Christians, and Sikhs, as well as myriad tribal religions.
• Geographically diverse, from the world's tallest mountains to vast deserts and tropical forests.
• Arts play a critical role in Indian life.
• Rulers have been extremely generous patrons who commissioned great buildings, sculptures, and murals to enhance civic and religious life, as well as their own glory.
• Monuments are conceived as a combination of the arts.
• Artists carry out their work at the behest of an artist who acts as a team leader with a single artistic vision.
• Indian monuments have a uniformity of style.
• Design of religious art and architecture may have also been determined by a priest or other religious advisor.
• Artists are trained as apprentices in workshops.
• Indians are highly organized in their approach to artistic training.

Buddhist Philosophy

• Is still practiced today as the dominant religion of Southeast Asia.
• Teaches individuals how to cope in a world full of misery.
• The central figure, Buddha (563-483 B.C.E.), rejected the worldly concerns of life at a royal court.
• He sought fulfillment traveling the countryside and living as an ascetic.
• Life is believed to be full of suffering that is compounded by an endless cycle of birth and rebirth.
• Buddhist aim is to end this cycle and achieve oneness with the supreme spirit.
• Buddhist aim involves a final release or extinguishing of the soul which can only happen by accumulating spiritual merit through devotion to good works, charity, love of all beings, and religious fervor.
• Buddhist art has a rich cultural iconography
• Some of the most common symbols include:
  • The Lion: Symbolizes Buddha's royalty.
  • The Wheel: Symbolizes Buddha's law.
  • Lotus: Symbolizes Buddha's pure nature.
  • Columns surrounded by a wheel: Symbolize Buddha's teaching.
  • Empty Throne: Symbolizes Buddha, or a reminder of a Buddha's presence.
• Buddhas have a compact pose with little negative space and are often seated.
• Treatment of drapery varies from region to region showing variations in the presentation from the shoulders.
• Figures are generally frontal, symmetrical, and have a nimbus, or halo, around their heads.
• Helpers, called bodhisattvas, are usually near the Buddha, sometimes attached to the nimbus.
• Buddha's actions and feelings are revealed by hand gestures called mudras.
• The head has a top knot, or ushnisha, and the hair has tight-fitting curls.
• Extremely long ears dangle almost to his shoulders.
• A curl of hair called an urna appears between his brows.
• His rejection of courtly life explains his disdain for personal jewelry.
• Beneath statues of Buddha there is usually a base or a predella.
• Buddhist art also depicts distinctive figures called yakshas (males) and yakshis (females).
• The females often stand in elaborate dance-like poses, almost nude, with their breasts prominently displayed.
• The depiction of yakshas accentuates male characteristics such as powerful shoulders and arms.

Bamiyan Buddhas

• Gandharan, 400-800, destroyed 2001.
• Cut rock with plaster and polychrome paint, Afghanistan
• Consists of first colossal Buddhas.
• Two huge standing Buddhas, one 175 feet tall, the other 115 feet tall.
• Smaller Buddha: Sakyamuni, the historical Buddha.
• Larger Buddha: Vairocana, the universal Buddha.
• Niche is shaped like a halo-or mandorla-around the body.
• Buddhas originally covered with pigment and gold.
• Cave galleries weave through the cliff face; some contain wall paintings and painted images of the seated Buddha.
• A pilgrimage site linked to the Silk Road.
• Pilgrims can walk through the cave galleries into passageways that lead to the level of the Buddha's shoulders.
• Originally, pilgrims were able to circumambulate legs.
• Caves were part of a vast complex of Buddhist monasteries, chapels, and sanctuaries.
• Located near one of the largest branches of the Silk Road.
• Served as models for later large-scale rock-cut images in China.
• These Buddhas was destroyed by the Taliban in an act of iconoclasm in March 2001.

Jowo Rinpoche at Jokhang Temple

• Dynasty, believed to have been brought to Tibet in 641.
• Composed of gilt metals with semiprecious stones, pearls, paint; various offerings, Lhasa, Tibet
• Statue thought to have been blessed by the Buddha himself.
• Believed to have been crafted in India during his lifetime; said to have his likeness.
• Believed to have been brought to Tibet in 641.
• Temple founded in 647 by the first ruler of a unified Tibet.
• Disappeared in 1960s during China's Cultural Revolution.
• In 1983, the lower part was found in a rubbish heap and the upper part in Beijing; restored in 2003.
• Enshrined in the Jokhang Temple, Tibet's earliest and foremost Buddhist temple.
• Served as a proxy for the Buddha after his departure from this world.
• Often decorated, clothed, and presented with offerings.
• Is a depiction of Buddha Sakyamuni as a young man around the age of twelve.
• Most sacred and important Buddhist image in Tibet.
• Jowo means “lord,” Khang means "house."

Buddhist Architecure

• Principal place of early Buddhist worship is the stupa, a mound-shaped shrine that has no interior.
• Stupa is a reliquary.
• Worshippers gain spiritual merit through being in close proximity to its contents.
• Staircase leads the worshipper from the base to the drum.
• Buddhists pray while walking in a clockwise or easterly direction.
• It has cosmic symbolism, it’s also a symbol of Mt. Meru.
• Has a central mast of three umbrellas at the top symbolizing three jewels of Buddhism: Buddha, Law, Community of Monks.
• Square enclosure around the umbrellas symbolizes a sacred tree surrounded by a fence.
• Four toranas, at the cardinal points of the compass, act as elaborate gateways to the structure.

Great Stupa

• Buddhist, Mauyra, late Sunga Dynasty, 300 B.C.E.-100 C.E.
• Stone masonry, sandstone on dome, Sanchi, Madhya Pradesh, India
• A pilgrimage site.
• Buddhist shrine, mound shaped and faced with dressed stone containing the relics of the Buddha.
• Worshipper circumambulates the stupa clockwise along the base of the drum.
• The circular motion suggests the endless cycle of birth and rebirth.
• Three umbrellas at the top represent Buddha, Buddha's law, and monastic orders.
• A railing at the crest of the mound surrounds the umbrellas, symbolically representing a sacred tree.
• The double stairway at which south end leads from base to drum, serving as a walkway for circumambulation.
• The structure was originally painted white.
• The hemispherical dome is a replication of the dome of heaven.
• Has four toranas, or gateways, at cardinal points of the compass, grace the entrances.
• Toranas are richly carved scenes on the architraves; Buddha does not appear himself instead is symbolized by an empty throne or a tree under which he meditated.
• Some of the sculptures represent sites where Shakyamuni Buddha visited or taught about the jataka stories.
• Has Horror vacui of composition and high-relief sculpture.

Borobudur Temple

• Sailendra Dynasty, c. 750-842, volcanic stone masonry.
• Is located in Central Java, Indonesia
• Pyramid in form and aligned with four cardinal points of the compass.
• A square-shaped plan with four entry points.
• Rubble faced with carved volcanic stone.
• Built on a low hill rising above a wide plain.
• Massive Buddhist monument contains 504 life-size Buddhas, 1,460 narrative relief sculptures on 1,300 panels 8,200 feet long.
• The complex contains 72 openwork stupas each having a Buddha, each with a preaching mudra.
• Divided into three sections, representing three levels of Buddhist cosmology:
  • Base: represents the lowest level of experience.
  • Body: five terraces in which people abandon desire for a formless world.
  • Superstructure: area where people where the physical world and worldly desires are expunged.
• A place of pilgrimage.
• Built as a stupa.
• Has concentric square terraces topped by three circular tiers housing a stupa at the summit.

Hinduism

• Outsiders consider this a bewildering religion with myriad sects, each devoted to the worship of one of its many gods.
• Complexity and multiplicity and evident through it's name meaning, " the religions of Hindustan (India)."
• All forms of Hinduism concentrate on the infinite variety of the divine, whether it is expressed in the gods, in nature, or in other human beings.
• Orthodox Hindus accept as divine the Vedic texts originate from.
• Those who proclaim to be orthodox Hindus maintain aspects of the Vedic social hierarchy, which assigns Brahmins.
• As in Buddhism, every Hindu should lead a good life through prayer, good deeds, and religious devotion.
• Shiva is one of the principal Hindu deities.
• Includes Vishnu, the preserver god; and the great goddesses who are manifest as peaceful consorts, like Laksmi and Parvati.

Hindu Sculpture

• Typically is a complete integration alongside the architecture of Hindu temples.
• Pairs of divine couples, known as mithuna appear upon the exterior and doorways of temples.
• Hindu sculptures accentuate sinuous curves and lines of the body.
• Temple surfaces are also ornamented with organic and geometric designs.
• Images are invoked with the essence of divinity and represent the deity.
• To touch the image is considered touching the god himself or herself.
• Through actively seeing invoked image, they experience darshan.

Nataraja

• Dates from the Chola Dynasty c. 11th century C.E..
• Cast bronze, from India (Tamil Nadu)
• Shiva performs a dance of creation
• Has four hands.
• Can be bathed and clothed.
• Meant for processions.
• Shiva periodically destroys the universe so that it can be reborn again because The sculpture becomes the receptacle for the divine spirit when people pray.

Hindu Architecture

• Is not a hall for congregational worship; instead, it is the residence of a god, Hindu temples are solidly built with small interior rooms, just enough space for priests and worshippers.
• At the center is a tiny interior cella, known as the "Womb of the World."
• The sacred statue is also placed in this location.
• An antechamber, where ceremonies are prepared, precedes the cella.
• A hypostyle hall is visible from the outside where congregants can participate.
• Temples are constructed amid a temple complex that includes subsidiary buildings, having a more vertical character.
• Major temples form "temple cities" in south India.
• Layers of concentric gated walls surround a network of temples, shrines, pillared halls, and colonnades.
• Hindu temples found in Cambodia exhibit a pyramidal plan.
• Temple exteriors are covered with sculpture.

Lakshmana Temple

• Hindu, Chandella Dynasty, 930–950, sandstone.
• India appears like rising peaks of mountain range.
• Compact proportions.
• The east/west axis: Receives direct rays from the rising sun.
• Ashlar masonry; is made of fine sandstone.
• Sculpture harmoniously integrates with the architecture.
• Is erotic to symbolize regeneration with frank sexuality.
• Hindus move in a clockwise direction starting at the staircase to circumambulate the temple.

Angkor Wat

• Hindu, Angkor Dynasty, c. 800-1400, made of stone masonry, sandstone, in Cambodia
• Surrounding the main pyramid, there are four corner towers.
• Has corbelled gallery roofs showing Indian influence made with horror vacui of sculptural reliefs.
• Most sculptures are shown in rhythmic dance poses demonstrating a repetition of shapes.
• Dedicated to Vishnu.
• May have been intended to serve as the king's mausoleum.
• The complex has a mixed Buddhist/Hindu character.
• Complex built by successive kings and have mountains that symbolize the peaks of Mount Meru.
• The story involves churning the ocean, using the Serpent King, Vasuki, which involves devas and asuras.

Painting

• Indians excel at painting miniatures and illustrations done with watercolor on paper.
• One of the most famous schools of painting is the Rajput School.
• Most Indian art compositions tend to be crowded and colorful showing a richness of expression.
• Characteristics of Indian painting include a heightened and intense use of color, with black lines outlining figures.

Bichitr, Jahangir Preferring a Sufi Shaikh to Kings

• C. 1620, and composed of watercolor, gold, and ink on pape.
• Jahangir is the source of all light shown by a halo of the sun and moon.
• Jahangir wears a single pearl a devotion to an eleventh century saint.
• The sheik was superintendent of the shrine at Ajmer, where Jahangir lived.
• Holy men are placed above and rank higher than others.