Oct. 20, 2012 Isabel Seliger, PhD Proposal for Berliner Künstlerprogramm/ DAAD
“unrealized projects” TRANSCULTURAL BODHISATTVA STUDIES: RE-CONSIDERING THE BODHISATTVA ICON IN A TRANSCULTURAL AND GLOBAL CONTEXT
Project Abstract: Art historical research as well as Buddhist and cultural studies have long neglected to conceptualize a comparative approach to the study of Bodhisattva images in Asian religious cultures, as a result of which the deity’s symbolic significance from a broader historical, inter-Asian, inter-aesthetic, inter-artistic, diachronic and global perspective has remained largely obscure. At the same time, critical positions in the creative arts have neglected to challenge the academic environments that frame art historical perspectives on non-Western arts, as well as scientific discourses which not only define the meaning and study of these art forms but also their disciplinary rank within the academy as well as their modes of appreciation. My project proposes the re-consideration of this complex deity, in particular its migratory, border-crossing, interactive, and multivalent nature, as well as its role as a mediator and participatory figure in the formation of Asian civilizations.
When Buddhism spread from India to Southeast Asia, China, Korea, and Japan, there also evolved a system of diverse meanings and forms associated with this icon as it absorbed developing beliefs and regional tastes within Buddhism while also being transformed according to regional cultural preferences. As bearers of transcultural knowledge, i.e., as products of the early processes of iconization in Buddhism which were stimulated by a religious and cultural syncretism, representations of the Buddhist personification of wisdom and compassion thus played an important iconographic and social role in Asian societies. As intermediary zones for contact, transformation, and exchange, these icons remain of interest in the contemporary age since they initiated participation and transmission, as well as constituted sites of negotiation where different knowledges and visualities were able to compete and merge. As such, these objects’ interconnections with the world as well as their modifying strategies provide insight into processes of cross-linking in global interactions through the spaces of Asian art whose flows and configurations still speak to the condition of image and world in the present.
Project Rationale: My project thematizes ancient and premodern Asia as an area of interest in artistic research and global visual culture, and aims to discern the long-term impact of disciplinary perspective and world view on characteristics of the Bodhisattva image in different cultural regions and eras.
Attachments: 2 jpegs 2 first tests: 1) “inter-artistic”; 2) “migration”
Selected Bibliography: Caroline Walker Bynum et al (eds.). Gender and Religion: On the Complexity of Symbols. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1986. Nandana Chutiwongs, The Iconography of Avalokiteśvara in Mainland South East Asia, (New Dehli: Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts and Aryan Books International, 2002). Vidya Dehejia, “Aniconism and the Multivalence of Emblems,” Ars Orientalis 21 (1991), pp. 45-66. Luis Gomez, “From the Extraordinary to the Ordinary: Images of the Bodhisattva in East Asia,” The Christ and the Bodhisattva, eds. Donald S. Lopez, Jr. and Steven C. Rochefeller, (Albany: State University of New York 2 Press, 1987), pp. 141-191. Shaheen Merali (ed.). Re-imagining Asia: A Thousand Years of Separation. London, Beirut: Saqi Books, 2008. Miyake Murase, “Kuan-yin as Savior of Men: Illustration of the Twenty-fifth Chapter of the Lotus Sūtra in Chinese Painting,” Artibus Asiae, vol. 33, nos. 1-2 (1971), pp. 39-73. Barbara E. Reed, “The Gender Symbolism of Kuan-yin Bodhisattva,” Buddhism, Sexuality, and Gender, ed. José Ignacio Cabezon, (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992), pp. 159-180. Rolf A. Stein, “Avalokiteśvara/Kouan-yin, un exemple de transformation d'un dies en deess,” Cahiers d'Extreme- Asie, vol. 2 (1986), pp. 17-80. Willa Jane Tanabe, Paintings of the Lotus Sūtra (Tokyo: Weatherhill, 1988). Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche, trans. Nyung Na, The Means of Achievement of the Eleven-Faced Great Compassionate One, Avalokiteshvara, (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 1995). Washizuka Hiromitsu, Park Youngbok, Kang Woo-Bang, and Naomi Noble Richard (eds.), Transmitting the Forms of Divinity: Early Buddhist Art from Korea and Japan (New York, NY: Abrams, 2003). Serinity Young. Courtesans and Tantric Consorts: Sexualities in Buddhist Narrative, Iconography, and Ritual. New York, NY: Routledge, 2004. Chün-fang Yü. Kuan-yin: The Chinese Transformation of Avalokitesvara. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000.
Oct. 20, 2012 Isabel Seliger, PhD Proposal for Berliner Künstlerprogramm/ DAAD
“unrealized projects” TRANSCULTURAL BODHISATTVA STUDIES: RE-CONSIDERING THE BODHISATTVA ICON IN A TRANSCULTURAL AND GLOBAL CONTEXT
Project Abstract: Art historical research as well as Buddhist and cultural studies have long neglected to conceptualize a comparative approach to the study of Bodhisattva images in Asian religious cultures, as a result of which the deity’s symbolic significance from a broader historical, inter-Asian, inter-aesthetic, inter-artistic, diachronic and global perspective has remained largely obscure. At the same time, critical positions in the creative arts have neglected to challenge the academic environments that frame art historical perspectives on non-Western arts, as well as scientific discourses which not only define the meaning and study of these art forms but also their disciplinary rank within the academy as well as their modes of appreciation. My project proposes the re-consideration of this complex deity, in particular its migratory, border-crossing, interactive, and multivalent nature, as well as its role as a mediator and participatory figure in the formation of Asian civilizations.
When Buddhism spread from India to Southeast Asia, China, Korea, and Japan, there also evolved a system of diverse meanings and forms associated with this icon as it absorbed developing beliefs and regional tastes within Buddhism while also being transformed according to regional cultural preferences. As bearers of transcultural knowledge, i.e., as products of the early processes of iconization in Buddhism which were stimulated by a religious and cultural syncretism, representations of the Buddhist personification of wisdom and compassion thus played an important iconographic and social role in Asian societies. As intermediary zones for contact, transformation, and exchange, these icons remain of interest in the contemporary age since they initiated participation and transmission, as well as constituted sites of negotiation where different knowledges and visualities were able to compete and merge. As such, these objects’ interconnections with the world as well as their modifying strategies provide insight into processes of cross-linking in global interactions through the spaces of Asian art whose flows and configurations still speak to the condition of image and world in the present.
Project Rationale: My project thematizes ancient and premodern Asia as an area of interest in artistic research and global visual culture, and aims to discern the long-term impact of disciplinary perspective and world view on characteristics of the Bodhisattva image in different cultural regions and eras.
Attachments: 2 jpegs 2 first tests: 1) “inter-artistic”; 2) “migration”
Selected Bibliography: Caroline Walker Bynum et al (eds.). Gender and Religion: On the Complexity of Symbols. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1986. Nandana Chutiwongs, The Iconography of Avalokiteśvara in Mainland South East Asia, (New Dehli: Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts and Aryan Books International, 2002). Vidya Dehejia, “Aniconism and the Multivalence of Emblems,” Ars Orientalis 21 (1991), pp. 45-66. Luis Gomez, “From the Extraordinary to the Ordinary: Images of the Bodhisattva in East Asia,” The Christ and the Bodhisattva, eds. Donald S. Lopez, Jr. and Steven C. Rochefeller, (Albany: State University of New York 2 Press, 1987), pp. 141-191. Shaheen Merali (ed.). Re-imagining Asia: A Thousand Years of Separation. London, Beirut: Saqi Books, 2008. Miyake Murase, “Kuan-yin as Savior of Men: Illustration of the Twenty-fifth Chapter of the Lotus Sūtra in Chinese Painting,” Artibus Asiae, vol. 33, nos. 1-2 (1971), pp. 39-73. Barbara E. Reed, “The Gender Symbolism of Kuan-yin Bodhisattva,” Buddhism, Sexuality, and Gender, ed. José Ignacio Cabezon, (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992), pp. 159-180. Rolf A. Stein, “Avalokiteśvara/Kouan-yin, un exemple de transformation d'un dies en deess,” Cahiers d'Extreme- Asie, vol. 2 (1986), pp. 17-80. Willa Jane Tanabe, Paintings of the Lotus Sūtra (Tokyo: Weatherhill, 1988). Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche, trans. Nyung Na, The Means of Achievement of the Eleven-Faced Great Compassionate One, Avalokiteshvara, (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 1995). Washizuka Hiromitsu, Park Youngbok, Kang Woo-Bang, and Naomi Noble Richard (eds.), Transmitting the Forms of Divinity: Early Buddhist Art from Korea and Japan (New York, NY: Abrams, 2003). Serinity Young. Courtesans and Tantric Consorts: Sexualities in Buddhist Narrative, Iconography, and Ritual. New York, NY: Routledge, 2004. Chün-fang Yü. Kuan-yin: The Chinese Transformation of Avalokitesvara. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000.