Day 74 - Chinese bodhisattva

July 23, 2018

Gallery 208 is devoted to Buddhist statues in bronze (often gilded), ceramic, stone, and wood from the 7th through the 18th centuries. I am immediately impressed by a pair of lifesize stoneware figures of arhats (another kind of enlightened being) that flank the gallery's entry . Both are seated in the lotus position, their garments decorated with the same three-color (green, gold, and beige) glaze. But their faces are highly individualized - and arresting. 

I admire today's object for its grace.  Dating from the 11th century, it is a lifesize sculpture showing the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara (Guanyin) seated in the "Water Moon" position, his right knee raised to the side, his left leg bent inward. He appears to be nude to the waist except for a band that extends  diagonally across his chest, a cape draped over his left shoulder, a large pendant necklace, and armbands around his upper arms. A dhoti-like long cloth is tied around his lower body. While his torso is slim, his breasts and belly are rounded, and horizontal lines suggest folds of flesh above his navel. Similarly, while his face is oval, his cheeks are full and rounded above a small mouth; to my surprise, he has a double chin! The fullness of his face and his unlined countenance make him look very young. His arched eyebrows are strongly indicated above his cast-down eyes. On his head he wears an elaborate headdress showing a seated Buddha, a common way of portraying this particular bodhisattva.  He looks very much at peace. And, in fact, the Water Moon position was taken to represent the bodhisattva in his Pure Land, or personal paradise. 

What is remarkable to me is that, if I'm reading the caption correctly, the statue was carved from a single block of willow wood.  And, as with the Tang mirror, I'm taken with the use of positive and negative space. The ease and languor with which the figure's right arm extends over his raised knee are emphasized by the empty space separating arm, knee, and torso. Similarly, the fingers of both hands curve gracefully down into thin air. And the space between the figure's neck and the braids of hair draping over his shoulders makes his head stand out. The space seems "unnecessary," yet the figure would lose a great deal without it. 

This figure helps me understand the three-dimensional nature of sculpture in a new way, emphasizing as it does the interplay between volumes and the spaces between them.