Interview with Robert Jacobsen

Curator of Asian Art

1. Is this a sculpture of the Buddha?

This is a large, over life-size image of Kuan-Yin (pronunciation: "GWAHN-yin"), one of the Buddhist disciples, called a Bodhisattva.

A Bodhisattva is a person who could achieve Nirvana—a state of total bliss that the Buddhists were all meant to aim for—but chose rather to help humankind out in their quest for Nirvana.

(1) Hand gestures indicate discourse.

So, in a way, Bodhisattvas are teachers. The figure, in fact, is in the course of teaching, with his hand gestures clearly indicating discourse.(1)

2. When you look closely, you see just how detailed it is.

What's remarkable in this late Sung sculpture is the sense of realism or naturalism. The eyes for instance are inlaid with glass in a way that makes them look moist and quite realistic as we gaze up into them. The mustache has been indicated.

The drapes or folds are rather naturalistic. In fact, they reflect in great detail the beautiful patterns that would have been typical of aristocratic dress during the Sung Dynasty.(2)

(2) The garments reflect contemporary aristocratic fashions.

That is to say these garments—the silk patterns that we see when we look closely at the original surface here—would have reflected the very rich, gold thread garments that were being made during this period and worn by China's upper class.

3. What else does this object say about its own time and place in China?

The gesture itself—the seated pose, one of meditation, cross-legged as we see it here—is old to Buddhist iconography. But it's also obvious that this is truly a Chinese face. Keep in mind that Buddhism had come to China centuries earlier from India. The earliest images that the Chinese made were in response to the Indian iconography that they were familiar with. By this period in time, they'd evolved a system of jewelry, of garment, of textile patterns, and certainly hair-dos and facial types, or physiognomy, that is purely Chinese.

Also, many historians agree that the last great moment in Chinese Buddhist sculpture occurred in the late Sung period, in the 12th and 13th centuries. Wooden sculpture at that time is perhaps the best we've ever seen.