I’ve an admission to make: I’ve been playing a little game, waiting for someone to call me out on the fact that I’ve placed a book of 17th century paintings in a section reserved for contemporary South Asian art. But you’ve got to admit: on the surface, it’s not an easy call.
All knowledge begins with a mystery, and there are plenty of them at the Asian Art Museum. Over the past several weeks, I’ve been spending a lot of time in the labyrinth under the museum, where some of our greatest mysteries reside. Among the most intriguing are a set of three Tibetan paintings, each one superficially identical to the others. At the center of each thangka sits a Buddha; around him appear a host of red-haloed mini-Buddhas. But a closer look begins to reveal telling details. Body color and hand position differentiate each central Buddha from the others – and this is the crucial clue that tells us we are missing two thangkas from what was once a five-thangka set.
In the original set, each of the five, differently-colored Buddhas presides over one of the cardinal directions, with an additional Buddha at their center. I’ve included an image of these Five Buddhas as they would appear in a complete set. As you’ll immediately see, the museum is missing the blue Buddha of the east, and the red Buddha of the west. I’ve been able to trace the blue Buddha (his name is Akshobhya, the “unshakeable one”) to Honolulu, but the red Buddha is still at large, perhaps in the Tibetan monastery where it was originally created – a place called Sakya, one of the most important institutions in the Himalayas.
The field of Buddhas behind each central Buddha might seem haphazardly arranged, but this is not the case. Looking closely, you’ll see that they occur in a regular sequence: red, yellow, white, blue, and green, repeated ad infinitum. This fivefold pattern recapitulates in microcosmic form the fivefold structure of the original set of thangkas. Distributed regularly on the thangka’s surface, the field of haloed Buddhas reveals a bilateral symmetry in which diagonals consisting of a single Buddha-color flow downwards at 45 degrees.
Inside the central section of each painting appear 16 small figures. These too might seem randomly distributed, but again this is not the case. In fact, these figures, like the central Buddhas they surround, occupy one of the cardinal directions. When mapped out onto a ground-plan, the form hidden just behind the surface of the thangka becomes clear: our three Sakya paintings (and the two missing ones as well) each represent one quarter of the meditation aid called a mandala.
In the next post, I’ll show you the precise mandala from which these Tibetan images derive, and teach you how to read it. Then, we’ll be in a position to explore the imagery on some of the Asian’s more complex thangkas.
Until then, look closely and patiently at the thangkas, and see what kinds of insights emerge. When you start with a mystery, you may be surprised at what you can discover!
It’s no secret that this time of year brings stress as well as celebration. Well, forget crowded stores and generic gift offerings: Here are five unique gifts that you can pick up on your next visit to the museum.
1. Give the gift of membership, from $75 ($40 students, $55 seniors). Share your love of art with those you love. If you’ve ever been moved by art, you know this is truly a gift that keeps on giving. Available at the museum or online.
2. Tied Rocks by Shizu Okino, $25 – $70. The Bay Area artist adapts traditional basket-making techniques into handheld art objects.
3. South Asian ornaments, $3.95 – $25. Traditional folk craft in fabric, wood, and papier-mâché – perfect for the holidays, or any time. Who wouldn’t want one?
4. VIP admission tickets. These special gift tickets give the recipient access to the Maharaja exhibition as well as the museum’s collection galleries. Available only in the museum; $17 each, or $15 each if you purchase 10 or more – make it a family outing!
5. Hidden Meanings is back in print! Terese Tse Bartholomew’s masterpiece on symbolism in Chinese art is now available, $45 softcover, $65 hardcover. Shipping is available to any US destination.
Left to right: Illustration from A History of Chinese Civilization (Ritual vessel ding, approx. 1050–1000 BCE. China, early Western Zhou dynasty. Bronze. Asian Art Museum, The Avery Brundage Collection, B60B2+; photo by Kaz Tsuruta) and covers of Modern China Studies; 1616: The World in Motion; and Along the Yangzi River: Regional Culture of the Bronze Age from Hunan. (See below for larger images.)
Asian Art Museum staff have been busy on the publication front beyond our own upcoming exhibition-related publications such as Phantoms of Asia by assistant curator of contemporary art Allison Harding (with Mami Kataoka of the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo) and Out of Character: Decoding Chinese Calligraphy by senior curator of Chinese art Michael Knight.
As we head off for the Thanksgiving holidays, we wanted to take a moment to reflect on what we at the museum have to be thankful for: our wonderful donors, members and supporters. I received this note from one of our registrars (and regular blog contributors), Cristina, who was looking at a list of recent acquisitions:
In particular I would call out one object on the list: a screen titled Sun and Autumn Plants. I think that this is a wonderful example of a recent gift because not only did the donor give us, in the name of her family, this beloved screen that had been in her home for many decades (she was downsizing to a senior community) but she also donated funds to pay for a complete conservation treatment and remounting of the screen. Next year we will send it to a traditional Japanese mounter located in New York who will conserve and entirely remount it – a process that will take about 18 months. Because of the specialist labor and materials involved, remounting is quite expensive and something we cannot frequently do. Once remounted, this work will be ready for display and will also be in better condition to survive many more decades.
We want to acknowledge all who have contributed in some way, large or small, to our community. If you are a member, don’t forget to take advantage of our special offer for members through November 27. It’s our small way of saying thanks.
For museum visitors, the exhibition Bali: Art, Performance, Ritual closed on September 11, more than two months ago. But for me, the Bali exhibition has only recently truly ended. As the registrar charged with ensuring the safe travel of the exhibition objects, I can’t call my job done until the last object has been safely returned home.
Objects from Bali: Art, Ritual, Performance are deinstalled following the close of the exhibition.
Most of the objects in Bali were borrowed from lenders in the Netherlands. Returning these works was therefore quite a journey.
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It will come as no surprise to anyone who has visited the museum store that we undergo some fairly significant changes for each exhibition. While visitors can usually expect to find Korean & Chinese ceramics, Southeast Asian textiles, antiques and oddities, as well as artist-produced goods from Asia and the Bay Area, exhibitions are an opportunity to show off cultural connections.
But this time around, we’re doing things a little differently.
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Yesterday we finished an installation in the Japanese galleries of 123 netsuke, all newly on view. Netsuke are miniature sculptural toggles (usually around two inches or less across), which were threaded onto the silk cords of small inro (seal or medicine cases), pouches, or pipes/tobacco accessories. These toggles allowed wearers to keep their accessories fastened safely to their person as they went about their business. (Something like clipping your keys or your badge to your belt loop, but a bit more fashionable.) Wearers would run the cords under their obi sashes so that the netsuke hung out above the obi and the accessory hung below it.
One of the netsuke on view in the new installation is a tiny figure shown with a tobacco pouch and pipe case hung from its obi by a dark colored, round netsuke—perhaps one similar to the kagamibuta (“mirror lid”) netsuke also on view . . .
LEFT: Netsuke of Okame lifting her kimono hem, approx. 1800–1900. Signed “Mitsu” (or “Ko”). Wood; inlaid ivory, coral, metal, and horn. Asian Art Museum, The Avery Brundage Collection, B70Y1233.
RIGHT: Kagamibuta-type netsuke of Hachisuka Koroku and Hiyoshimaru (youthful Toyotomi Hideyoshi) meeting on the Yahagi Bridge, approx. 1800–1900. Signed “Soyo.” Mixed metals; buffalo horn. Asian Art Museum, The Avery Brundage Collection, B70Y285.
A journalist asked us today about the enamel eyes sported by our Vishnu and Lakshmi sculpture in Sanjay Patel’s Deities, Demons and Dudes with ‘Staches.
One of our conservators with some ready-made enamel eyes.
This sculpture was originally intended to have eyes like these. There are carved depressions in the stone for them, as you can see from the picture below. We don’t know whether the sculpture never got its eyes, or lost them at some point. Years ago we made a mold of the eye depressions, and I gave the mold to an artisan in India who makes such eyes. The artisan then created a pair for us from enameled metal, as is traditional.
Vishnu and Lakshmi in their former, eyeless state.
Sanjay Patel’s show is almost ready – it opens this Friday, November 11. I peeked in today and it looks amazing. I can’t wait for the full experience!
We wanted to share this clip of Sanjay discussing India and identity with some of our Asian Art Museum Art Speak interns. His appearance in conversation with Maharaja curator Qamar Adamjee on November 12 promises to be an insightful and entertaining discussion.
Our YouTube channel has more of the students’ interview with Sanjay. The talk on Saturday, November 12 is free with museum admission.
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