Source: www.nytimes.com
NEW YORK, August 25, 2010: “Civilizations are processes, not things.” These true words by Sheldon Pollock, a scholar of Sanskrit and Indian history at Columbia University, aptly describe a civilization’s art as well. It is easy to witness this flux in the exhitbit “Gods of Angkor: Bronzes From the National Museum of Cambodia,” Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, where countless Buddhas and Shivas hover and buzz around you like so many emerald green hummingbirds.
For ancient art from Southeast Asia, we need every scrap of news we can get. Even the most basic facts elude us. We have no clear idea, for example, of when metal casting arrived in Cambodia, or where it came from when it did.
Cambodian traditions for casting figures in metal seem to have had two influences, Chinese and Indian. Seven pintsize bronze Buddhist figures, dating from the sixth and seventh century A.D., point to both. Dug up in a village garden in 2006, these little statues were the first beneficiaries of the museum’s metal conservation and they glow, their patinas a powdery, succulent green.
But Cambodia’s religious history was not, it should be said, only or even primarily Buddhist. The favored religion of the Khmer empire during much of its span from the 9th through the 13th centuries was Hinduism. The fabled city of Angkor Wat was a Hindu monument with Buddhism folded in. Angkor Thom, built later by the ruler Jayavarman VII, was Buddhist but with a Hindu overlay.
And the intermingling of faiths came with complications. Hinduism and Buddhism were each divided into separate strains. Cambodia’s ancestor-centered native religions were vital and popular. So were royal personality cults promoted by self-celebrating Khmer kings. Even intact sculptures can be baffling. A multi-armed figure on display is for sure a Hindu God, but which one? The items in his hands — an orb, a conch shell, a disc, a mace — belong to Vishnu. But the towering sadhu-like hairdo says Shiva loud and clear.
The art exhibit remains through January 23, 2010.