Dragons 3D

#dragons #sculpture  

DRAGONS 3D - A medley 

(in Asian sculptures) 

Dragons don't just feature on Ceramics Prints and Paintings. 

Here's some 3D imagery.

From Korea a sculpture in metal.

Vietnam a stone balustrade both sculpture and architecture 

this Japanese sculpture has movable parts  !

 and a second Vietnamese Dragon 

low relief ceramic 

THREE MARICI SCULPTURES

THREE #MARICI #SCULPTURES to finish off the marici sequence

Chinese Buddhist Temple Image

Tibetan or Himalayan 

Chinese Ceramics Image 

Next time back to those lonely fisherfolk in art and poetry !

Monju Manjushri Two Images

#monju #manjushri #sculpture #lacquer #buddhistdiety #buddhistart #weidynasty #japaneselacquer

Two contrasting images and mediums used to depict a Buddhist Deity.

This first image is a Eastern WEI dynasty Chinese Sculpture

The second is Japanese lacquer so combines painting and molded sculpture

One Buddhist theme two different but related cultures. 

Kisshoten is Lakshmi

#Kisshoten #Lakshmi A Medley of Images

Yes Kisshoten is Lakshmi. Goddesses Migrate!

#japanesesculpture #hinduism #buddhism

Just being doing a stats check and all of my all time most popular posts was on the evolution of images of Lakshmi from those in India to later in Tibet and Japan.

So here's some again to save you scrolling down! 

Its still the year of the rooster!

#okimono #japanesesculpture #bronze #rooster #hen 

It's still the Year of the Rooster so lets get back to that for a few posts though I will be doing other bird / flight / winged beings theme posts before the year of the dog starts.

Here's a lovely Japanese Bronze Okimono for you to enjoy!

One side effect of the fall of the Tokugawa regime was that craftsfolk working in metal who once produced objects catering to samurai and daimyo like sword scabbards, armour and helmets needed new markets and shifted to creating what the Japanese call okimono and we call Objects of Art or Small Sculptures such as this lovely pair.

Enjoy!!!

Hotei in Lacquer

#hotei #lacquer #japanese 

I found one last #Hotei image on share with you !

Not maki-e but still a beautiful example of a functional object that's also exquisite sculpture!

Maitreya in Indian Sculpture

#maitreya #kushan #gupta #indiansculpture #buddhistsculpture

Google Plus brilliantly showed the bottom image of the prior blog post as the top image instead of this!

Note how in Indian art Maitreya is masculine  

Now this Gupta  sculpture is from a couple of centuries later!

Still male but the mo has gone and if you've seen Khmer or Thai images of Maitreya you can see the links and the beginnings of a succession of changes to later versions in SE Asia and China

Next time back to China!

A HAN Ceramic Tile

A HAN CERAMIC TILE

#chinese #ceramic #tile #dragon #AGNSW #asianart

This is one of my favorite objects in the Art Gallery of NSW Asiann collection.

It's small and rough but yet striking and a bit of a mystery.

Is that an angle or a man wearing a cape. Is he dancing taming or fighting with the dragon. Is he a warrior or a shaman or a spirit?

As for the dragon notice how even in this early depiction it has a flexible body and some kind of head crest.

Despite its gray coloring this tile always catches my eye when I visit the Asian art room! It tends to be rotated in and out of storage due to its small size.

I love the composition too!

The next few posts will focus on Chinese sculpture in various mediums.

DIAO and CARVING

#diao #hanzi #sculpture #chinese #kanji

Copyright Julie Vaux 2016

I noticed while researching this Chinese dictionaries databases and lexicons print or we preferred the character on the left whereas other dialects and languages preferred the right hand version which doesnt include the meaning of raptor bird though the use of three strokes doesnt remind me of the marks made by a chisel!

If you've ever see how raptor birds stab and tear at meat you'll understand while this word has a second meaning and usage. Next week more sculpture!


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Western Han Rhino Sculpture / Vessel

Why is this #Chinese #sculpture Important?

Its also a #bronze #vessel #westernhandynasty a #ZUN and an "object d'art" and despite the inlaid ornament is a fairly accurate depiction of a #rhino !

There seems to have a trend in this era for vessels and small sculptures shaped like tigers dragons rhinos and elephants with the animals being depicted with varying degrees of either realism or stylization. 

The disturbing thing about this is that it suggests that either elephants and rhinos were still common in parts of China where they are extinct now or that these animals were used as subjects because they were becoming suddenly increasingly rare outside of remote forests or private wildlife preserves / hunting parks ?

Apart from the environmental history aspect its a magnificent example of how the Chinese created objects that can be defined as functional sculptures or vessels with sculptural values. Many of the best Chinese sculptures are small to medium sized objects and vessels in jade wood clay lacquer or bronze less so in larger stone though. Although the Chinese could carve and shape jade boulders large sculptures in the round in stone vary considerably in quality. 

It is a lovely piece of art though however you define or describe it and whatever its story is ?!

The Xibeigang Tigers

#Chinesesculpture #sculpture #tigers  #marble #xibeigang #shang

This marble slab carved with two tigers is from a ancient royal tomb not a temple. The use of marble is unusual for Chinese sculpture.

It does illustrate an abiding tendency for Chinese sculptures to work in a raised relief style even when doing large monumental works. One often gets the feeling looking at large chinese sculptures particularly some WEI dynasty pieces that the sculptors and stone masons were given a line sketch and told make this #3D for a tomb/ temple or however you would say that in Ancient China.

The sculptor was rendered the tiger in a stylised manner that reminds me of taotie masks on bronzes.

I wonder if they opted for marble because jade boulders of that size were not available but the rulers commissioning the tomb insisted on a pale color stone?

The trend of using marble didn't last for long. 

Carvers stonemasons and sculptors seem to be have preferred wood and jade and smaller stones until there was another sculpture revival in the WEI dynasty.

I suspect people who had the talent and skills and hand to eye co-ordination to be good carvers were put to use creating the fine details for the molds for casting bronzes for the courts or incising lines to inlay color on lacquer objects and of course shaping jade and other stones into pi discs!

However there are many noteworthy chinese sculptures which we will be taking a look at in the next series of posts.