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Buddhist Art in China and along the Silk Route | Art History Basix | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: Buddhist Art in China and along the Silk Route
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This content explores the spread of Buddhism along the Silk Routes, focusing on its establishment and artistic manifestations in Afghanistan and China, highlighting the cultural adaptation and iconographic evolution of Buddhist art.
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In this next video, we'll continue to discuss the effects of Buddhism
throughout Asia and the spread of Buddhism along the Silk Routes. And I'm
going to use the term "Silk Routes" because there were a lot
of different trade routes that moved throughout Asia, so there wasn't just a
single Silk Road, although we do tend to say "silk route" or "route" or "Silk Road" and
give this idea of a single path. However, you can see from this particular map, it
was much more varied than that. So we'll start off thinking about Buddhism moving
into Afghanistan at the trading post of Bamiya and then spend most of the video
thinking about how Buddhism became established [to the east] in China. So you can see from
this map how it is moving from northern India to the area of Afghanistan into
Southeast Asia into China and eventually into Korea and Japan. So the next video,
we'll think about how Buddhism is adopted in Korea and Japan, and how the
art is produced there, and what it looks like. So - zooming into the trading post
of Bamiya and looking at these Bamiyan Buddhas. They are very very famous for
the fact that they were destroyed recently. So in 2001, these colossal
Buddhas that were part of a series of a rock-cut caves -- so caves that were carved
into the living rock. There was a long tradition of this in Buddhism, as we saw
with the caves of Ajanta. These were actually developed around the same times
as the caves of Ajanta so around that Gupta period. So we do see the Gupta
style for the Buddhas that we see here -- these colossal Buddhas. However, at this
site, when the Taliban was in control, they made the decision to destroy these
Buddhas. There was a long history where they had actually been probably damaged
deliberately so for example the faces -- there's some debate whether there were
masks or some kind of other material that was used to cover the faces but
most likely this is a previous instance of what we call ICONOCLASM:
the deliberate destruction of images often for a religious purpose or a
political purpose. In this case, there was probably a little bit of both. Most
people talked about the idea that the Taliban is
is an Islamic group, is a group of Muslims, and so you have individuals who
are against representation of the human form, and then, of course, the
Buddha figure is associated with a different religion, so this [resulting] idea that
these figures had to be destroyed. But the reality was -- it was doing that -- it was
destroying these figures that were associated with another religion, but in
addition to that it got them [the Taliban] a lot of political attention, as well. So there's
always this idea that in the destruction of art you can get attention. You can
draw attention to your cause, and so many art historians have stated, yes, there was
a religious reason to this and it was based on an idea that the human form is
often rejected in Islamic art (however that's not always the case) and there was
probably a very strong political reason for doing this. And the Taliban actually
alerted people that this was going to happen, and so many museum officials were
begging them not to do it, were asking them not to do it, and the responses were
very interesting. They would say things like: well, these Western institutions
will do anything to save this art, but they won't help a starving child or they
won't help people who are dying in Afghanistan." And that's the reality of
what they needed at the time, so it did make a really big political splash when
this happened. So the largest of the Buddhas was about
175 feet tall. It was created, again, out of the rock of
these cliffs, but then also decorated or the texture was added through ropes and
plaster and building up the surface texture. So you can see the before, the
destruction, and the after. And one of the the negative effects that has actually
happened is Bamiya was a region of tourists and tourism, so people
were coming to see these Buddhas and now they've made the decision -- of course
people aren't going to come because there's nothing to see. The Buddhas are
no longer there, so the region has lost a lot of money and a lot of people who
were involved in the destruction or who were forced -- who say they were forced to
be part of the destruction -- regret what they did. There you can see just a larger
view of the colossal Buddha the slightly smaller Buddha. So there were standing
Buddhas, seated Buddhas, but the most famous was this colossal Buddha of
175 feet tall. There's a path for circumambulating
along the head, so there are some videos of people -- you can see them
online -- of people up in this upper area, but there is evidence that there was
earlier destruction, earlier instances of iconoclasm, you can see the destruction
on the legs, on the face, and then in 2001 there was this final destruction of
these figures. so a very famous example of iconoclasm that involved Buddhism and
also involved images along these trading routes so this very much was on the west
side of the trading routes of the silk routes but then we'll be focusing more
on the east, as we think about China. So thinking about China and how Buddhism
was established, it's important to think about how Buddhism becomes accepted into
the Chinese culture. We've been thinking about Daoism and Confucianism and those
very dominant philosophies in China. So, how does Buddhism become part of the
culture there? So, Buddhism was introduced in China in approximately the 1st to
2nd century CE or AD. Legend has it that it was in 70 CE or AD, but it's
probably more of these kind of rough dates of 1st to 2nd century CE. It was
said that following a dream the emperor sent emissaries in search of a golden
man who taught new doctrines. His emissaries followed the Silk Road and
encountered two Indian monks. The monks brought sutras, which are Buddhist
scriptures to teach the emperor and in a relatively short amount of time -- by 400
CE -- about 90% of northern Chinese had accepted Buddhism.
However, this always depended on the emperor. Some Emperors rejected it as a
foreign religion while other emperors were much more accepting of it. When
Buddhism was worked into Chinese tradition of revering one's ancestors,
family, it was much more accepted. When it was connected to Daoist traditions or
Confucian traditions, it was much more accepted. And, of course, we can see this
in a number of religions when they are brought to different territories, they
become localized in some way, and so that's very true of Buddhism in China.
The earliest known image of the Buddha is actually in the United States. It's
called the Brundage Buddha. It's an image of the historical Buddha. It's relatively
small -- a little over a foot -- from what we call the period of division
or Six Dynasties, so a period of multiple rulers and it dates to 338 CE and
has this gesture of meditation. But it's in the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco,
so, if you're in the United States, it is easy to see and is a very important
early dated Buddha. So we know that this image comes from the very, very early
period of Buddhist worship [in China] and, of course, because it is very small, it's
portable, so it probably could be brought with you like a portable altar to
encourage meditation and prayer. So in that case it's significant, and it's
gilded, so a very luxurious object. In addition to these smaller objects, we
have these colossal rock-cut images similar to the Bamiyan Buddhas we just
saw. Thinking about also the caves that we saw at Ajanta in the last video. This
idea of creating these large Buddhist structures that are carved into the
living rock. So in this particular case we're seeing a large historical Buddha
the Shakyamuni with a smaller Buddha to the side. There would have been
another Buddha over here. Most likely these three Buddhas constitute the
Buddha of the distant past, the historical Buddha, and the Buddha of the
future, so this tripartite representation. There would have been covering -- like a
cave wall that covered them, but you can see that over time the stone has eroded
and now we can see these images fully. This comes from you can see the Northern
Northern and Southern dynasties. The Northern
Wei is up here, and that's where this cave structure is located. This is known
as the Yungang caves near Shanxi in China from the second half of the fifth
century, and, as I noted the front half has crumbled. This is not as large as the
colossal Buddha the Bamiyan Buddha, but it is 45 feet tall -- the historical
Buddha at center. And this was said to have been an offering after persecutions
of Buddhists by Emperor Taiwu. So, as I said, there were some emperors who were
more accepting of Buddhism and some that actively persecuted those who were
following Buddhism. So for an emperor who was hoping to make an offering to repent
for what had happened, this was what he was able to create.
You can see that the Buddha has the ushnisha, has those large earlobes, but in
just a few slides we'll talk about how the Buddha has become part of the
Chinese culture. This is just another image to give you a sense of scale. So
you can see the individuals entering into the rock caves. And there were lots
of images as part of these caves complexes. I'm just showing
you one large section -- one of the most famous sections. I also wanted to point
out that behind the Buddha you can probably just barely see these images,
these multiple images of the Buddha replicated over and over again, and this
was a particular miracle of the Buddha, where he made this appearance of a thousand Buddhas that appeared. And so we often see these
images of the Buddha and then many many Buddhists behind him, and it's this idea
of life as an illusion and reinforcing this idea of everything as an illusion.
And so whenever you see the Buddha with these multiples behind him, it's
referring to a specific miracle where he was reinforcing that idea. So
you've probably seen this in other videos from the class so far but the
idea of two forms of Buddhism that develop. So you have Theravada (or
Hinayana) Buddhism which stresses self-cultivation for the purpose of
attaining nirvana. So it's more of an individual path to nirvana there's also
more of this focus on the historic Buddha. And then there's Mahayana which is known
as "greater vehicle" and it does not stress attaining nirvana for oneself but
Buddhahood or enlightenment for every being in the universe. And in Mahayana
Buddhism, you tend to see multiple Buddhas. You tend to see more Bodhisattvas so you tend to see a bit more complex iconography when it
comes to art history. So that's the important thing for this class is that
with Mahayana Buddhism, you do see the possibility of many more Buddhas. So it
does become a bit more complex. Mahayana is much more common in East Asia and
Theravada or Hinayana Buddhism is more common in areas of Southeast Asia . So we
were looking at the Yungang caves. Now, we'll look at the Longmen caves.
In this cave, we can see not only sculpture but also painting. We can see
the historic Buddha with attendants in a particular chapel -- a fairly large
representation, 21 feet tall. And this dates to 523. Talking about the
characteristics of the Northern Wei Buddha: we see full faces with a
welcoming smile, full bodies rounded shoulders -- similar to those rounded
shoulders we saw in the Mathura style -- exaggerated large hands. And then the
Sinocization of the Buddha -- this making of the making the Buddha more
Chinese. We see more of this flamboyant pointed MANDORLA -- I call it
a super halo in the background. So you can see this pointed quality that we
often see in China around this time. And the monastic robes are identified as
more Chinese so the garments become more local, as well. So obviously this period
is still iconic. We were talking about in early Buddhism, it's aniconic. You see
the Buddha represented by footsteps, by the umbrella, by the wheel, by the lion,
and so as we move later, it's much easier to relate to religion, when you can see
an icon, when you can see an image of the holy figure. And so Buddhism becomes very
firmly iconic as we move into this later period. Looking at some relief sculptures,
and thinking about how Buddhism was becoming Chinese, and becoming more local,
and respecting the family, we have a really interesting relief sculpture that
comes from a chapel from the Longmen grottoes or the Longmen caves. And this is
now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. But you can see the Emperor
Xiaowen, represented here. It was commissioned by his son
Xuanwu, who is showing it as an offering of reverence to his father, and probably
hoping that his father will continue on to nirvana, continue on to that point of
extinction, and something that he probably hopes for himself. So something
of a good work that he could do for himself and for his father. At this point,
people are less focused on creating elaborate burials for themselves because
in Buddhism there's not that belief that that's important. You don't need to bring
all those with you because you're gonna reach that
point of nirvana. So it's interesting how the art patronage is much more focused
on glorifying the Buddha, glorifying the worship of the Buddha, rather than
glorifying oneself in the afterlife. So a clear difference from the types of
artwork that we were seeing from the Han Dynasty and the Qin Dynasty. So in this
particular case of course. We have the Emperor we can see him with his
entourage. It has this nice kind of movement to it as they're moving towards
the Buddha presumably there would be a Buddha at the center that these figures
are moving towards within the chapel. We can zoom in on the Emperor himself and
usually it's pretty easy to spot who the main figure is because the body is fully
revealed. We can still see some remnants of paint as well. So obviously this
would've been much more colorful when it was first created. As we move on in
Chinese history, we think about the Sui dynasty which brings about more
reunification of north and south in China. I wanted to point out a particular
altar where we're seeing the appearance of the Amitabha Buddha. This is the
Buddha of infinite light and the principal Buddha of the Pure Land sect
of Buddhism. So this is connected to that Mahayana that more kind of complex idea
of Buddhism where we're gonna start to see more and more Buddhas. The Amitabha
Buddha became very popular because he presented kind of a slightly easier
access to nirvana the and the idea that by praying to this Buddha [and saying its name] you would gain
access to the Western Paradise or the Pure Land. And so the idea that
oftentimes these religions require a lot of work, a lot of rrayer. The Amitabha
became a very popular Buddha for presenting a slightly easier route
to paradise. We are seeing here a relatively small altar -- 30 inches, so it
is portable. It does have these kind of dangling aspects that would have created
perhaps an element of sound, You can see the Buddha at center on a lotus blossom,
very stylized lions on either side, presumably Bodhisattvas [or attendants] in more princely
garb. The lotus, again, an important symbol of Buddhism
with the idea of the pure flower emerging from the muck of the swamp and
then an illusion perhaps to the Bodhi tree where the Buddha was able to attain
enlightenment. You can see that the whole thing is made of cast bronze so that
idea of bronze working continues in China. We can see some detail so you can
see how elegantly and the detailed quality of this work, the textures that
were created almost like jewelry hanging down from this altar. But just this idea
that the prayer to the Amitabha could continue no matter where you went by
bringing this portable altar. With the Sui [dynasty], you can see a great elegance and kind
of thin quality to the figures. As we move on, I just wanted to focus on
thinking about the Mogao caves at Dunhuang. So this is a very famous system
of caves. And these caves were commissioned mostly by officials and
also by merchants -- people who were working along the Silk Road. So this is
the area that we're talking about -- a relatively uninhabited area. And so this
is China's largest Buddhist cave complex, and it's located 25 miles from Dunhuang, but usually they're called the Mogao caves Dunhuang. Just to give you a
sense of the setting, the number of caves, about 500 decorated caves
the site. They span about one mile. And what's really wonderful about the Mogao
caves is that it shows us examples of art across various dynasties, various
Chinese dynasties, so the Northern Wei the Sui -- two dynasties we've already seen --
and in the Tang dynasty, which we're about to move into and we'll see an
example of painting from that dynasty. So a really striking and very extensive
cave complex, and a cave complex that conservators are actively trying to
preserve because it was very covered with sand and the effects of being in
the desert. So here we can see the Mogao caves at Dunhuang in 1907.
There was this excavation around this time they had heard rumors of a painting
gallery in the desert. It took this particular archaeologists a years on
foot to reach Dunhuang, and they were very impressed by the
variety of things that they found the artwork they found including a library
cave, which we can see here. Again we see the traditions of the Buddha, such as
ushnisha, the halo, the mudra, and the larger mandorla -- that kind of
super halo that goes around the Buddha continuing. We can see also the mudras
continuing -- the meditative gesture is visible. You can see the wonderful
painting that we see at the Mogao caves. So both painting and sculpture. Here you
can see the have-no-fear gesture, the wheel turning gesture, and then you can
also see stories of the Buddha's life. You can see the Jatakas. Those are
featured also at Mogao, and then also victory is over Mara. Mara is a demon, a
figure that represents earthly desire and all that, kind of, distracts an
individual from enlightenment, from nirvana, and so this is a particular
image from the northern Zhou dynasty, where you can see the Buddhas
victory over Mara's army. Here we can see the parinirvana. I haven't shown any
images of the parinirvana, but this idea of the Buddha reclining, referring to the
moment of the Buddha's implied death but really the Buddha is moving on to
nirvana, so moving on to a better place. Here we can see cave 196 that comes from
the late Tang. So we start to see the Buddha changing in the Tang dynasty, much
fuller face, and also those rolls around the neck are often a good hint. In this
particular case, you can see the teaching gesture of the Buddha. So thinking about
that Tang dynasty, a very, very important, very international moment for China,
again great unity for China where your unifying the north and the south after
there had been these periods of more disunity or division. From the Tang
dynasty, again, we're seeing these fuller fleshier Buddhas, very large Buddha. And
so in this particular case, we're seeing this image of the Western Paradise -- the
goal of praying to the Amitabha Buddha. This is where you want to go, but it also
gives us the sense of Imperial architecture under the Tang, so this
very grand architecture, wide eaves. You can see the pillars along the base
that allowed this very open airy kind of structure. A great symmetry and harmony
to the structure -- and I want you to keep this in mind because when we get to the
Forbidden City from the Ming Dynasty, you get this sense of harmony and order also
reinforced in the Forbidden City. So you see it here in in a Buddhist image, and
then you'll see it also in Imperial architecture as well later on. Of course,
we don't have Imperial architecture from the Tang [it doesn't survive], so seeing this in painted form
gives us a great sense of what structures would have looked like.
So, of course, here's the Amitabha Buddha. You can see an allusion to the tree, the
Bodhi tree. You can see the Bodhisattvas around. The pigment on the Bodhisattvas
has oxidized. I often receive questions from students -- why is their skin so dark?
But in fact that was not intended. The pigment has just oxidized. So we see be
Amitabha Buddha enthroned in the Western Pure Land, which is essentially his
heaven or paradise in the West. And he is flanked by those Bodhisattvas, those
enlightened beings who have chosen to stay behind to help people like you and
me make it to nirvana, make it to the point of enlightenment. Just comparing
the two Amitabha Buddhas. You can see the Amitabha from the Tang dynasty much
fuller fleshy, those telltale rings around the neck, and then versus the
thinner, slightly more delicate Amitabha from the Sui dynasty, so an interesting
change has occurred. The Tang style will become very popular internationally, so
we'll see it adopted in Korea and then also in Japan, so please keep that style
in mind because I'll be referring to [or saying] "oh, this Buddha looks like a Tang style
Buddha" -- that's because these artists are seeing or were exposed to the style of
Tang China. In addition to images of the Buddha, there's this kind of shift of how
the stupa is reinterpreted in China and so it takes the form of the pagoda. A
pagoda is a form [or type of monument] I'm sure many of you have heard of. The stupa, of course,
contained relics -- often relics of the Buddha's body or precious objects. And so
the pagoda did something similar. You have this idea of it holding something
precious and so in the case of the giant great goose pagoda which was built it
was inspired by a very early individual who had
traveled and learned about Buddhism [Xuanzang] and he told an emperor to build
it. And so it does hold these Buddhist sutras, these Buddhist scriptures inside,
so it holds these sacred texts. It is very similar to the stupa in the sense
that it's an axis mundi. So it has this connection heaven and earth, the
terrestrial and the celestial. And also this idea of encouraging meditation
through circumambulation. The final element of this video is just to remind
viewers that in China, there was this great interest in ceramics and this
great ability in ceramics. We saw it with the terracotta warriors very early on,
this ability to mass-produce and to use kilns to create very large quantities of
ceramics, and this will only increase as time goes on. So in this particular case
we're seeing a tomb figure a camel bearing musicians. So there still are
figures in tomb. People don't stop creating tombs, but people who
become Buddhist are much less interested in packing them full of
things. But in this particular case, you see a camel bearing musicians, another
example of a camel over here using a tricolor glaze. So it's an earthenware --
something that's been fired at a slightly lower temperature. These tend to be
a couple feet tall, so they are somewhat substantial in size. So it's a
light-colored earthenware clay and then you use this multicolored glaze made
from mineral pigments -- a lead glaze with mineral pigments -- so copper for
green, the iron creates a brown and amber, and the cobalt creates a blue, and it's
fired at 800 to 1000 degrees centigrade, so a high temperature but not
as high as it's going to go with things like porcelain. You can see here a jar
with handles from the Tang dynasty dating to around the same time well you
see much more of an interest in a simplicity of decoration. However, this is
stoneware so it's going to be fired at a slightly higher temperature. So in
this particular case the glaze is rich in iron. But you can see this
experimentation with different pigments with different glazes, with different
elements, and so this is creating different effects, and you can see how
the ceramicists are exploring different styles. And in
this particular case, it's the tea dust glaze, and I'm just pointing out that
this is a a fairly simple and rustic style. And the simplicity and rusticity
that we see will remain popular in certain areas of Chinese ceramics. We'll
also see it adopted in places like Korea and Japan. And so here I just
have a very basic layout of how earthenware, stoneware, and porcelain are
fired. Porcelain uses a very refined white clay
called kaolin or sometimes called kaolin clay, but you can see how they
progressively go to these higher temperatures, and the Chinese are really
very impressive in terms of creating these kilns that can fire at these
incredibly hot temperatures and can do so consistently. So, we'll start talking
about -- in future videos -- the first appearances of porcelain. But in
this in the next video that comes up, we will talk about Buddhism and in Korea
and in Japan. Alright, thank you!
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