Chicago's Hindu-Buddhist Art Show

[Guest guest]

Beauty at core of Buddhist-Hindu exhibit at Art Institute

 

March 30, 2003

 

By Margaret Hawkins

A one-of-a kind show of Buddhist and Hindu art opens at the Art

Institute of Chicago this week featuring 187 works of painting and

sculpture from Tibet, Nepal, Kashmir and Bhutan.

 

The works in the exhibit were chosen entirely for their aesthetic

qualities, not to illustrate any particular philosophy, says Dr.

Pratapaditya Pal, the Art Institute visiting curator of Indian,

Himalayan and Southeast Asian art. The purpose of the exhibit, he

says "is to encourage the viewer first to look and enjoy the beauty

of the objects and then to explore their spiritual import."

 

What this means is that every object in the show is a work of

beguiling beauty. Although we can learn a great deal about Buddhism

and Hinduism through studying these objects, the overriding

experience here is not one of being educated but of being transfixed

by images designed to draw us into meditative states through the

exquisite pleasure of looking.

 

That said, these objects, which date from the 5th through the 19th

century, are even richer when understood in their religious context.

 

Hinduism is the older religion of the two, and its deities dominate

the Nepalese and Indian galleries. Here the principals of karma and

reincarnation, the cycles of life, death and rebirth are illustrated

through Hindu mythology which provides a rich cast of characters,

many in animal forms. It is a mythology that offers what Pal

calls "the osmosis between the human, the animal and the divine" that

characterizes Eastern religions.

 

Though the exhibit spans 1,500 years, four countries and two major

world religions, the visual aesthetic at work here is remarkably

cohesive, with fairly subtle stylistic changes from gallery to

gallery, making it hard to single out highlights in an exhibit that

is itself a showcase of highlights. Even so, a few objects and themes

stand out.

 

"Buddha Sheltered by the Serpent" is both riveting in its solemnity

and strict symmetry, but also whimsical and visually inventive.

Illustrating a story in the life of the Buddha in which a snake rises

up to protect him during a long rainstorm, the stone temple sculpture

shows Buddha meditating on the snake's scaly coils made into a

throne. Above, the snake fans out his multiple heads to form a

protective canopy.

 

This blending of the animal world with the divine lends fantasy and

playfulness to this work, engaging us at whatever level of

understanding we bring to the art and lending it a charming

accessibility we in the west don't usually associate with

religion. "There is no separation between the secular and the

religious within these cultures," says Pal. "That is fundamental."

 

This is a world in which the playful mixes with the profound and the

secular with the divine, where the earth is inhabited by gods in the

form of animals and sensuous humans. The elephant-headed Ganesha, the

god of auspicious beginnings, makes frequent appearances, and the all-

inclusiveness of the divine is perhaps most fully expressed in the

beautiful nudity of gods and goddesses, sometimes posed in ecstatic

embrace.

 

It is impossible to appreciate these objects without becoming engaged

with the ideas they represent. The lotus, for instance, is ever

present, not merely as a decorative element but a symbol of the human

heart, what Pal describes as the "earthly citadel of the deity." Thus

the Nepalese stone sculpture of "Vishnu Sleeping on the Cosmic

Serpent" shows the deity, surrounded by his four wives, in a cycle of

rebirth as a new civilization blooms from the lotus growing from his

navel.

 

While the art from Nepal and Kashmir reflects the peaceful

coexistence of Buddhism and Hinduism in those lands, Tibetan art is

exclusively Buddhist. In place of the colorful mythology of Hindu art

we see portraits of gurus painted against fields of smaller figures

lined up in orderly rows representing the guru's lineage. "Tibet was

distinguished by a tremendous reverence for the guru," says Pal,

explaining that patrons commissioned portraits to honor their

spiritual teachers.

 

Also in the Tibetan galleries are stunning mandalas, concentrically

symmetrical paintings on fabric designed to focus attention and aid

in meditation. Buddhists considered red the most auspicious color and

it dominates these paintings, flattening the compositions and

creating a feeling of otherworldly intensity. Here the world is

represented in a hierarchy of creatures whirling in position around a

still center, creating a delirious sense of eternity and timelessness

all in one hypnotizing image.

 

Margaret Hawkins is a local free-lance writer.

 

 

 

 

'HIMALAYAS: AN AESTHETIC ADVENTURE'

 

*Through Aug. 17

 

*The Art Institute of Chicago, 111 S. Michigan

 

*(312) 443-3600