Buddhism Art/Artistic Expression
Buddha depicted in a art pictureTibetan art |
Buddha's duty as a teacher could not fully begin until pieces of art had opened society's imagination and a variety of perceptions. Buddhist scriptures opened up a huge world for people to visualize and put their imaginations and perceptions of life into something they can call a piece of art. Buddhism was a huge inspiration for art in the seventh century AD. Sakyamuni Buddha and other various cosmic Buddhas were portrayed in paradise/utopia settings.
If you visit Tibet today, you can still go see the magnificent Tibetan temple wall paintings. The most well known painting medium was known as thangka, also known as scroll painting. This painting was art that was on cotton cloth or silk and the colors used for these paintings were derived from vegetables and used as dyes. These thangkas were usually put in frames or some sort of silk brocade. Sculptures were made of metal, clay, stucco, wood, stone, and butter. The best known sculptures were known to be made of metal. These metal sculptures were usually these small bronze figures with meditation deities. These works of art were usually commissioned by people such as religious individuals of the temple. These pieces of art had to go through a strict amount of rules that strictly picked out things such as proportions and size, symbols and color schemes, and other such depending on the artistic manuals. Tibetan art was largely always anonymous. The artist was always left unknown to the public. The reason as to why these artists were left anonymous was due to the Buddhist belief in "working toward elimination of the individual ego." The Tibetan attitude was that a piece of art had it's known existence and it could speak for itself without the help of some artist's voice. This way it would help for the viewer to come to some sort of spiritual realization and/or personally imagine or come up with their own perceptions of the art. |