Art History 354 - Art of Buddhism

Moving across South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Silk Road, and East Asia, the spread of Buddhist art might be understood as one of the earliest forms of a truly global art. The course surveys momuments of architecture, sculpture, and painting associated with major Buddhist practices and sects. Topics include narratives of the historical Buddha; iconographic programs of ritual sites and sacred spaces such as caves, temples, and monasteries; cosmographic and sacred geographies; and the material cultures of ceremonial and ritual implements. Some of the recurring thematic issues we will consider are devotional objects and their status as works of art, complexities of interregional exchange and accommodations with local cultures, state patronage of religious art, the interplay between devotional communities and lay publics, and the scriptural tradition and its translation into visual and spatial representational programs.