Art in Buddhism

Many people know about Christian art, but Buddhist art as a whole, is not so well-known despite the fact that it is one of the six main religions of the world. Buddhist art came about around 500-300BCE and over time has spread all over Asia. Although Buddhism did not emerge till around 500 BCE, it took a couple of centuries for the art of this religion to develop. Buddhist art’s main theme is the Buddha and the life of the Buddha. However, there are also many different symbols and themes in Buddhist art, such as the Wheel, or the Bodhi tree. A lot of art also represent some of the bodhisattvas, which is an enlightened being/ existence.

 The first forms of Buddhist art were found on pillars. A monarch named Ashoka, who ruled around 272 to 231 BCE, had helped spread Buddhism across India by the use of pillars.  The pillars tended to portray pictures of the Buddha and keys aspects of his life, like his enlightenment, as well as earlier Indian beliefs. These pillars were quite Persian like and at first, had Indian subjects like cows, lions and elephants. These pillars seemed to be the first of Buddhist sculpture.

There were also ‘Stupas’, a mound in which relics were placed and a place where some Buddhists may have worshipped. Stupas played an important role in the development of Buddhist art too. Stupas could have lots of decoration and embellishments on; however, it is thought that the earlier Stupas were much more simplified. But there was still a lot of visual imagery on these earlier Stupas, and these images have helped us to learn how art has developed since then.

I find Buddhist art so interesting. I think it is because it evolved nearly 2500 years ago, and yet we know so much about it. It has managed to spread from country to country and it has developed so many variations. It is full of narratives and colour and although this blog is just a very brief overview of how it started off and developed, I hope that it sparks an interest in Buddhism. So why not learn more? There is so much more information out there.

Stop, and think

Last week I went to an art exhibition at my local university. Obviously, as the show was degree level, I had high expectations. My expectations were not particularly met but I’m not writing here today about that, instead I wanted to think about this one painting that I was absorbed by. When I say absorbed I mean mesmerized, so much that I didn’t even realise the room emptying around me. The first time I looked away I just thought the reason why I had been so gripped in this particular painting, was by the repetition of the thumbprints. I thought it was a bit like op art in the way that the repetition of patterns and lines causes you to stare at it till your eyes go funny. But then I looked deeper into it and realised there was so much more to this painting than I had thought.

 

When you look at it without focusing the thumbprints merge and become lines broken by the white thumbprints, like when you look at text without focusing. The artist (unknown to me) had done every thumbprint with such precision and the lines were nearly, completely straight. I noticed the variety of colour as well. The artist had not used black, grey and white. The white was like eggshell. This colour blended into the wall so well at times that all you could see was the actual thumbprint and no change in colour. The greys and blacks had browns and reds and even some yellow in them. This made every print individual. However, I then noticed that the artist had smudged some thumbprints together, maybe where they had printed one thumbprint too closely next to the other? On the other hand, there were some thumbprints that were far away from their neighbouring thumbprints. Some people might say that the artist was being inaccurate but this is what makes this painting so interesting to me. It feels human. It really feels like someone spent hours trying to imprint their thumb onto the wall, making their mark.

 

It is always nice to find a painting like this. A painting that at first seems so simple but it really has so much more going on. It is a rare occurrence for me to find a painting that makes me think so much and I ‘take my hat off’ to the artist as I only hope that one day my own artwork will make some art student stop, and think, and dream about what the artist was thinking of when they did this piece of artwork. After all, isn’t art meant to be like that?