Historical Exchanges of Buddhism and Its Art Between Tibet and India: Exbition

choi

Holland Cotter, 'Tibet and India: Buddhist traditions and Transformations'  Metropolitan Museum of Art Through June 18. New York Times, Mar 21, 2014 (In the column "Art in Review" by various authors)
www.nytimes.com/2014/03/21/arts/ ... ransformations.html

Note:
(a) The exhibition: Feb 8-June 8, 2014
www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2014/tibet-and-india

Please click "Objects in the Exhibition Gallery" in the right column of the Web page.
(b) The exhibition "asks how a religion fading away in one place manages to find its way to and blossom in another. The mode of transmission is, at least in part, through art.
By the 11th century AD, Buddhism’s days in its homeland, Hindu-dominated India, were numbered. Institutionally, it survived primarily within great monastic universities, libraries and ateliers like Nalanda, a religious center of learning from the fifth century AD, which was a go-to destination for countries outside of India desirous of checking their own versions of Buddhism against authoritative sources. Tibet was one of these countries. It sent monks and artists over the Himalayas into India to study; simultaneously, their Indian counterparts found their way north."
Nalanda
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nalanda
(was an ancient centre of higher learning ['from the fifth century AD to 1197 AD'] in Bihar, India; located about 88 kilometres south east of Patna, capital of Indian state of Bihar; Nalanda was ransacked and destroyed by a Turkish Muslim army under Bakhtiyar Khilji [who conquered much of eastern India, and was a member of Khilji tribe from Afghanistan] in 1193)
(c) "One of the larger pieces is a high-relief black stone sculpture of the seated Buddha, seen touching the earth to ground himself at the moment of enlightenment. It was carved at Nalanda in the 10th or 11th century, possibly for insertion in the wall of a stupa, or shrine. Perhaps less than a century later we find the same image, now slightly sweetened, slimmed down and free-standing, cast from brass in Tibet"
(i) "a high-relief black stone sculpture of the seated Buddha, seen touching the earth to ground himself at the moment of enlightenment"
This is item 4 ("Seated Buddha Reaching Enlightenment, Flanked by Avalokitesvara and Maitreya; Date: late 10th-11th century; Accession Number 20.58.16")
(ii) "Perhaps less than a century later we find the same image * * * free-standing, cast from brass in Tibet"
That is the one shown in the NYTimes critique: item 19 ("Seated Buddha Reaching Enlightenment; Date: 11th-12th century; ccession Number: 2012.458).
(d) "One of the finest examples anywhere is in the show: a manuscript written on dried palm leaves and illustrated with minute, fantastically vivacious figures. Such figures are basically all we know of a lost tradition of large-scale painting in India. And they served as models for a grand tradition of tangka painting under development in Tibetan and evident in rare 11th-century examples at the Met."
(i) palm-leaf manuscript
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm-leaf_manuscript
(as far back as the 5th century BC; in South Asia and in South East Asia)
(ii) For tangka, see thangka.
(A) thangka
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thangka
(also known as tangja; section 3 Process; pay heed to (a) thangha 1 with a mounting of probably six fabrics, and (b) a thangka with a dark golden cover and a mounting of three fabrics, whose lendend reads, "Bhutanese Drukpa Kagyu applique Buddhist lineage thangka with Shakyamuni Buddha in center, 19th century, Rubin Museum of Art")

* section 1 History: "Thangka is a Nepalese art form exported to Tibet after Princess Bhrikuti of Nepal, daughter of King Lichchavi, married Songtsän Gampo, the ruler of Tibet [who] imported the images of Aryawalokirteshwar and other Nepalese deities to Tibet. History of thangka Paintings in Nepal began in 11th century AD when Buddhists and Hindus began to make illustration of the deities and natural scenes.

* "What stumped me last night was this sentence in the introduction of this Wiki page: "The thankga is not a flat creation like an oil painting or acrylic painting but consists of a picture panel which is painted or embroidered over which a textile is mounted and then over which is laid a cover, usually silk."

What does this sentence mean? See (C) to (E) next.
(B) Songtsän Gampo
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songtsän_Gampo
(c 605/617 [an ox year]-649; reign c 629-649; in Chinese: 松贊干布 or 棄宗弄贊; many wives, including the Nepali princess Bhrikuti Devi (whom many modern scholars are doubtful about) and the Chinese Princess Wencheng)
(C) Ann Shaftel, Notes on the Technique of Tibetan Thangkas. Journal of the American Institute for Conservation, 25: 97-103 (1986)
www.jstor.org/stable/3179630

page 97: "The word thangka is thought by some to have derived from the Tibetan thang yig meaning 'annual' or written re4cord.' Thangkas originated in India and evolved, in Tibet

page 98: "The thangka support is generally cotton which is prepared with a ground, and upon which the painting is done before being sewn into the mounting. * * * Yak-hide glue was most frequently used to prepare the ground of a painting.

page 99: "[section headings] 3. Charcola Sketch   4. Application of Flat Colors

page 100: "Mountings are often made of silk imported from China, India, and more recently, Japan. For two reasons: the iconographic requirement of 'rainbows' (silk borders sewn aroundf the picture panel), and financial limitations, mountings are pieced together from fabrics of different weaves and weights

page 101: "Often a tailor has sewn a mounting over an edge or corner of a painting.

page 102: Fig 1 shows the finished thangka, including the "cover" and "mounting."

(D) Now you readily comprehend what is said here:

Thangka Preservation. Field Museum of Natural History(incorporated in 1893, at Chicago), undated
fieldmuseum.org/explore/department/conserving-collections/projects/thangka-preservation
("Thangkas are iconographically and structurally complex devotional images used in households, monasteries, temples and other traditional locations. The two primary sections, the painting and the mounting, are integral to the icon. The painting is done on a fine cloth, which is sewn into a textile mount comprising multiple layers and sections of textile finished at the top and bottom with a stiff bar. The face is protected with a fine cover cloth secured at the top and held open with cords and ribbons")
(E) Leslie Rinchen-Wongmo, How to Arrange the Draped Silk Thangka Cover. possibly Mar 6, 2010 (blog).
threadsofawakening.com/how-to-arrange-the-draped-silk-thangka-cover
(e) "One, Tenzing Rigdol, born to a Tibetan refugee family in Nepal in 1982, turns a painted image of a traditional Buddhist deity into a kind of jigsaw puzzle with crucial missing parts. And Gonkar Gyatso, born in Tibet in 1961, turns the earth-touching Buddha into a giant collage of corporate brand names and Twitter-style commentaries. Whether the figure is absorbing or radiating karma, good and bad, is impossible to say, but for sure in this visual pièce de résistance, transformations of Buddhist art and thought soar on."
(i) Works by Tenzing Rigdol and  Gonkar Gyatso are items 21 and 22, respectively.
(ii) pièce de résistance
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pièce+de+résistance