Transcript Jahangir Preferring a Sufi Shaikh to Kings

Sultanate of Delhi (1206 - 1526)
The World's Tallest Minaret:
To mark the triumph of Islam, Qutb al-Din
Aybak built a great congregational mosque
at Delhi, in part with pillars taken from Hindu
and other temples he demolished.
Jahangir Preferring a Sufi Shaikh to Kings,
Bichitr, Mughal Painting, India, ca. 16151618
Opaque watercolor on paper
The Mughal court had no equal in India in
its lavish patronage of the arts. By giving
the Koran to the Muslim holy man, Jahangir
shows him honor over the two kings
depicted and gives up worldly life and
control for the spiritual.
A mausoleum in paradise:
Monumental tombs were not part
of either the Hindu or Buddhist
traditions, but had a long history in
Islamic architecture. In India, the
Mughal Shah Jahan built the famous
Taj Mahal.
1632--1647
Krishna and Radha in a Pavilion
India, ca. 1760
Krishna, an avatar of Vishnu, was a
cowherd who spent an idyllic existence
tending his cows and sporting with
beautiful herdswomen. As many Indian
works of art are expressions of all that is
sensuous and erotic with the body, so is
this work depicting Krishna as he tenderly
embraces Radha beneath a pavilion.
Great Temple, Madurai, India, 17th
century.
The Nayak rulers, once vassals of the
Vijayanagara kings, came to power
in the 17th century. They built huge
temple complexes. The builders
erected large enclosure walls with
directional gorupas (gateway towers
like the one here) that stand about
150 feet tall. These are large and
are almost like independent cities
with thousands of pilgrims & many
festivals each year.
Walking Buddha, from Sukhothai, Thailand
14th century bronze
The Thai people revere the distinctive type of
Buddha image that developed at Sukhothai.
The Sukhothai Buddhas are highly idiosyncratic.
A flame leaps from the head and a sharp nose
projects from the rounded face. A clinging robe
reveals fluid rounded limbs andinflated bodies.
The Sukhothai walkking-Buddha statuary type
does not occur elsewhere in Buddhist art. The
Buddha strides forward, raising his heel off the
ground, his left arm raised with the hand held in
the fear-not gesture of a deity encouraging
worshippers to come forwarrd in reverence.
Thee Sukhothai artists intended the body type
to suggest a supernatural being expressing
beauty and perfection.
Schwedagon Pagoda,
Rangoon, Burma,
ca. 14th century
Renowned for the gold,
silver,and jewels encrusting
its surface, the Shwedagon
Stupa stands 345
feet high. Its upper part is
covered with 13,153 plates
of gold and at the very top
is a 7 tiered umbrella covered with a
gold ball inlaid with4,351 diamonds,
one weighing 76 carats. The stupa
was created as a gift to the Buddha
from the Burmese people.
Bamboo, Wu Zhen, Yuan Dynasty, 1350
The pattern of bamboo leaves, like that of calligraphic script, provided painters with an excellent
opportunity to display brushwork proficiency.
Temple vase, China, Yuan Dynasty, 1351. White
porcelain with cobalt blue underglaze
The vase was part of an altar set donated to a
Buddhist temple as a prayer for peace,
protection, and prosperity for the donor’s family.
It is one of the earliest examples of fine
porcelain with cobalt blue underglaze
decoration. It reveals the foundations for the
potters and decorators of Jingdezhen, which
during the Ming Dynasty became the official
source of porcelains for thegovernment and
court.
Taihe Dian, Imperial Palace,
Forbidden City, Beijing, China,
17th century and later
The red walls, pillars and yellow
glazed roof-tiles, and the
dougong and beams decorated
with dark-green designs of
dragons, phoenixes and
geometric figures, are
conspicuous against the grey
background of Beijing. Twentyfour emperors lived in and ruled
China from the Forbidden City
over nearly 500 years."
Lin Yuan (Lingering Garden), Jiangsu Province, China
Chinese gardens are sanctuaries where people commune with nature in
all its representative forms and as an ever-changing and boundless
prescence.
Marxism inspired a social realism in art that broke drastically with the traditional Chinese art. The
intended purpose of such art is to serve the
people in the struggle to liberate and elevate the masses. This can be seen
in Rent Collection Courtyard, a life size tableau located in Dayi. An
anonymous crew of sculptors portrayed the peasants, worn and bent by
their toil, bringing their taxes to the courtyard of the merciless landlord.
Dry cascade and pools, upper garden, Saihoji temple, Kyoto, Japan, modified during the
Muromachi period, 14th century.
Arrangements of rock and sand on the hillsides of the garden, especially the dry cascade and
pools are treasured examples of Muromachi dry landscape gardening.
Kano Motonobu, Zen Patriarch
Xiangyen Zhixian Sweeping with a
broom, Muromachi period, ca. 1513
The son of a painter and the son-in-law of Tosa
Mitsunobu, Kano Motonobu established an
efficient workshop -- the Kano School -- which
became a virtual national academy. Here he
depicts a monk experiencing the moment of
enlightenment. As Xiangyen swept the ground
near his near his rustic retreat , a stone struck
against a stalk of bamboo. The patriarch Zen
training was so deep that the resonant sound
propelled him into awakening. The work shows
Motonobu’s precise mode of painting in ink and
light color.
Tea-ceremony water jar, or Kogan (“ancient stream bank”), Momoyama
period, late 16th century
Starting around the late
15th century, admiration of the
technical brilliance
of Chinese objects gave
way to an appreciation of
the virtues of rustic Japanese wares. This new
aesthetic of refined rusticity,
or wabi, included the design of simple
tea rooms and houses that evoked
the hut of a recluse in the mountains
(Zen). The coarse stoneware body,
simple form, and casual decoration
reflect this aesthetic.
Hasegawa Tohaku, Pine Forest, Monoyama period, late 16th c.
Tohaku had close connections with Zen temples and sometimes painted in ink monochrome
using loose brushwork with brilliant success. His wet brush strokes -- long and slow, short and
quick, dark and pale -- present a grove of great pines shrouded in mist.
Eastern façade of Katsura Imperial Villa, Kyoto, Edo period
Built between 1620 and 1663, this building dates from the time of the tea ceremony’s greatest
popularity. Many of the villa’s design features & tasteful subtleties derive from earlier
teahouses, but it moves away from Rikyu’s wabi extremes, incorporating elements of courtly
gracefulness.
Hiroshige's "One
hundred views of
famous places of Edo"
Katsushika Hokusai, The Great Wave off Kanagawa, from Thirty-Six
Views of Mount Fuji series, Edo period, ca. 1826-1833, woodblock print