196 pages, hardback, 310 x 230 cm, 85 illustrations
PRICE: £25.00
ISBN: 978 3 907077 30 6
Kannon, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, is probably Japan’s most popular Buddhist deity. (His popularity is even reflected in the brand name of the famous ‘Cannon’ camera.) Images of Kannon – who hears the cries for help of all beings in distress – are the main focus of worship in many Japanese temples. This exhibition catalogue presents an exceptional selection of the most beautiful sculptures and paintings from the 7th to the 14th century, some of which have never been seen before outside Japan or which are rarely accessible even to the Japanese public.
Kannon represents the ideal of a bodhisattva (Bosatsu in Japanese). Bodhisattvas are beings who have already reached the highest stage on the path to enlightenment. Having vowed to help all other beings on their quest for truth, they will remain in the world of suffering until all are saved. Kannon Bosatsu, the embodiment of divine compassion, takes on many different forms in order to provide assistance. Thus he may sometimes appear with eleven heads, at other times with a thousand arms, or in a pose of pure contemplation. Throughout history, the great spiritual power of this deity has continued to inspire remarkable artistic creations, from finely modelled bronzes to life-sized wooden sculptures or elaborate paintings on silk. Hiroshi Sugimoto’s black-and-white photographs of the thousand-armed Kannon sculptures in the famous Sanjusangen-Hall in Kyoto complement these traditional works of art.
Detailed biographies describe the lives of twelve collectors of tribal art in Britain, active between 1770 and 1990. These men were rarely field collectors and only occasional travellers, but they were vigorous hunters, for whom the pursuit, handling and possession of such objects was what mattered. More
Twenty-five years after Captain Cook, the London Missionary Society sent its first representatives to the South Seas. Their goal was to eradicate heathenism and idolatry, but unwittingly, they became agents for the preservation of Polynesian culture through their diligent recording of language and religious practices. They even preserved a number of religious artifacts, which they sent back to England for exhibition in the Mission Museum in London. This book focuses on these artifacts, the idols that avoided the flames. More
Remembering Forward presents works by nine of the most prominent Australian Aboriginal artists: Paddy Bedford, Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Queenie McKenzie, Dorothy Napangardi, Rover Thomas, Ronnie Tjampitjinpa, Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri, Tim Leura Tjapaltjarri and Turkey Tolson Tjupurrula. More
Illuminator, painter, scribe, clerk, teacher, doctor of theology, restorer and binder, Mesrop was one of the greatest Armenian artists of his and following generations. He was prolific, working for at least forty-two years in Sos (New Julfa) from 1608 to 1651. This book will be the first serious study of the forty-six of his manuscripts that have survived. The focus of the book, however, is The Four Gospels, one of the few manuscripts painted entirely by Mesrop’s hand and one of the most extensively illuminated in his oeuvre. More
In the winter of 1586, Hakob Jughayets'i, one of Armenia's most celebrated illuminators, completed work on a Gospel Book with an extensive and extraordinary programme of narrative miniatures and marginal figures. More