Discoveries: Arts and Culture

Viewing Buddhism in Nepal is seeing Buddhism in a Hindu (caste) context.     Professor von Rospatt tries to enable the participants in this study group understand how scholarship about the West differs from scholarship about the East.   The West is constantly seeking innovation and new perspectives while the East is seeking a continuous thread.   He discusses the relationship between Buddhism and its origins in India and its passage through Nepal, Tibet, China, and on ward to Korea and Japan and SE Asia.  His focus is his specialty, Nepal, which scholarship looks to India. What the Buddah has said is or must be true.  Tibetans believe in Indian scripture, but the Chinese have reinvented text and fabricated text.   He mentions the French Belgian Larencin de Poussant (sp)?as being the most accurate translator of texts.  One member of the study group, Iowan Tenzig is married to the guide of Tucci, the famous Italian scholar; she was in Rome, and w...

Spoke with Deputy Director Pedro Moura Carvalho, at the reception prior to the business meeting held by Linda Lei, President.   Wine and a light buffet was served in the museum.  The Deputy Director spoke about "What is a masterpiece in Asian Art?"    He presented common examples in Western Art, and queried as to what would be the criteria for the counterpart.   This lecture was a postscript to the series of lectures for docent training in the Spring, which foccussed on iconic objects in the Asian Art Museum, discussed, for the most part by AAM curators, with some guest curators in the program.   Quality, craftsmanship, aesthetic principles and patronage all are factors, of course.  As in the West, what is contained in a museum is a donor contribution and has been filtered through collectors and dealers.   I don't have more to say about this right now.  The Deputy director adopted an entertaining style using cartoons and light hearted mate...

  Quite a feat for the curator, Forrest McGill, to accomplish with the SFMOMA curator, to house the SFOMA exhibition at the AAM.  Art critic H Cotter in this week's NYT said he would love to see a show which displays the eclectic art of India, Japan, SE Asia, and Western art, essentially; he must not have "Gorgeous" on his radar.  It is time; we live in a global world....right.   

See Fig. 4 Saint Ren and Hindu ascetics (Renunciation, Penance) Hatha yoga: control of breath and mind.  Nath guru in patchwork robe. Fig 3  (Text in reverse order of figures)  Gesture of reverence in dialogue between yogis Fig 2 In Punjab at temple and pool dedicated to Shiva, intense dialogue with one Natha yogi Fig 1     ) Fig 1 Temple and pools dedicated to Shiva with Nanth yogis  Fig 2.  Gesture of Reverence. Yogi  in Dialogues  Natha Guru in patchwork coat in dialogue.  Hatha Yoga  Fig 3.  Fig 4 Sant Ren and Ascetics(in penance renunciation)  

Pleased to discover Asia Foundation.  Met Judy Wilbur, Asia Foundation Trustee. Fellowship honors her late husband.  She says they travelled for business to SE Asia and continue to do so, for import export business.  We walked out together and talked briefly.  We  heard an archaeologist from Mynamar, who obtained his Masters degree at University of Pennsylvania, and was here under a grant for research to authenticate the objects in the Asian Art Museum from Mynamar.  Gentle-man and thorough and meticulous in his  clerical research on the temples in Puyi, I Burma and their counterpart, Dvaravati in Thailand....Puyi is a candidate for World Heritage monuments.   Nyunt Han, had received the Brayton Wilbur, Jr. fellowship in Asian Art. He has been affiliated with the Ministry of Culture for more than 30 years, and visited the US in 2011 to view Burmese art at the Northern Illinois University.    Was cordially gree...