The exhibition Discovering Buddhist Art—Seeking the Sublime has returned to the Seattle Asian Art Museum, installed in new rooms and made more comprehensive by the inclusion of Chinese works, allowing visitors a greater understanding of Asian Buddhist art.
Featured are approximately 90 ... Read more
The exhibition Discovering Buddhist Art—Seeking the Sublime has returned to the Seattle Asian Art Museum, installed in new rooms and made more comprehensive by the inclusion of Chinese works, allowing visitors a greater understanding of Asian Buddhist art.
Featured are approximately 90 pieces of sculpture, painting, ritual implements and textiles from India, China, Tibet, Korea, Thailand and Japan. They illustrate the spectacular development of Buddhist arts and trace the influence of indigenous artistic styles and materials over 2,200 years. Intended for a wide audience, Discovering Buddhist Art is more than an introduction. It has been designed to evoke new views and stimulate appreciation for the art and material culture of one of the world’s most widespread religions.
Buddhism began with the story of Siddhartha, the prince of the Shakya warrior clan, born in the sixth century B.C. in northern India (present-day Nepal). Realizing the inevitability of suffering in the human experience, the prince left the palace to enter a life of spirituality. Fleeing the strict asceticism of his day, he attained enlightenment through meditation and from then on was known as the Buddha. From the monasteries of India, Buddhist beliefs and arts flowed in several streams throughout Asia. Consequently, Buddhist imagery and decoration, affected by available local materials, developed into many different forms and styles.
Various Buddha sculptures, including two standing Buddhas—one from China around 600 A.D., the other from eleventh-century Japan—are on display in the first gallery of the exhibition. The second gallery includes a rich variety of Buddha and Bodhisattva images along with a pantheon of related beings, illustrating the breadth and depth of Buddhist artistic creativity. The final gallery of this exhibition features an installation suggesting a ritual space, replete with an Amida (Buddha of Infinite Light), two Bodhisattva, four guardian kings, and temple ornaments produced from the eleventh to the eighteenth century in Japan. This unique installation serves as an excellent introduction to Buddhist art while simultaneously evoking fresh views and concerns of Asian aesthetics.
Curated by Yukiko Shirahara, John A. McCone Foundation Curator of Asian Art, Discovering Buddhist Art is part of the reinstallation of the Japanese galleries at the Seattle Asian Art Museum.
