Echoes of the Past: The Buddhist Cave Temples of Xiangtangshan
Review by Diane Saarinen
A magnificent head of the Buddha – measuring nearly three-feet high – from one of China’s amazing devotional sites is just one of the many treasures that await at Echoes of the Past: The Buddhist Cave Temples of Xiangtangshan at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (www.isaw.nyu.edu).
These temples, which were carved into mountains of northern China and lavishly decorated with sculpted images of the Buddha and other celestial beings were damaged during the early twentieth century, when many carvings were removed. The exhibition brings together twelve of these sixth-century sculptures, on loan from American and British museums.
It is the full-scale, digital, 3-D reconstruction of the interior of one of the site’s most impressive caves that truly is the crowning achievement in this exceptionally well-designed exhibition. The visitor sits in darkness, in front of three screens that each show separate moving images – 3-D laser scans — and it would be a challenge not to feel as if one has become a temple supplicant from long ago. Wall text from the exhibition describes “caves as special places that could both offer shelter and contact with an imagined spirit world.” Sitting in the multimedia reconstruction, it’s not so sure it is imagined…
Also on view are examples of bodhisattvas and pratyekabuddhas (enlightened spiritual beings worshipped as deities) that were present in the caves. In stark contrast to the serene Buddhas are also monster-like entities which most likely represented evil spirits dispelled by Buddhist wisdom.
Echoes of the Past is curated by Katherine R. Tsiang, Associate Director of the Center for the Art of East Asian, University of Chicago. The ISAW presentation is curated by Peter De Staebler, Assistant Curator. A full-color, 257-page publication titled Echoes of the Past is available through the University of Chicago Press website (www.press.uchicago.edu). The show runs through January 6, 2013.
Established in 2006, the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University is an independent center for scholarly research and graduate eduation intended to cultivate comparative and connective investigations of the ancient world. A Spring 2013 exhibition is planned, titled Cult and Temple: Prehistoric Malta. 15 East 84 Street, New York, New York.
South Cave, Northern Xiangtangshan, current condition. Photo: Center for the Art of East Asia, Department of Art History, University of Chicago. Photo: Dan Downing.
Still of screen from Digital Cave: close-up view of 3-D reconstruction of missing Buddha head in yellow against colored (texture-mapped) cave temple wall, east altar, South Cave, Northern Xiangtangshan, with missing fragments shown in yellow. Photo: Jason Salavon and Travis Saul, University of Chicago
Diane Saarinen is the founder of Saima Agency, a NYC-based public
relations company.
