A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c15.s3.t1: I. Tibet
A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c15.s3.t1
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I. Tibet
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The art of Tibet is so closely related to that of Nepāl that the paintings of both countries may be grouped together. The style is a combination of Indian and Chinese characteristics, traceable back to the earlier style of Turkistan, specimens of which have been cited in Section 2 of this chapter (*ante*, pp. 308–12). Nepāl probably imitated Indian painting before Tibet was sufficiently civilized to do so. According to Tāranāth (*ante*, p. 305) the earliest Nepalese school followed the model of the school of the ‘Ancient West’ founded by Sringadhara of Mārwār in the seventh century, while subsequent Nepalese artists inclined rather to favour the methods of the Bengal ‘Eastern’ school of the ninth century. No specimens assignable to either of those periods are now known to be extant, except possibly the miniatures in two MSS. examined by M. Foucher, which may belong to the ‘Eastern’ school. The latest Nepalese artists before Tāranāth’s time in A.D. 1600 are said to have had ‘no special character’. All the existing specimens of Nepalese painting, with the exception of the miniatures in the MSS., apparently are later than the seventeenth century. Most of the extant Tibetan pictures are believed to be not older, but it is not possible to determine exact dates. I have not been able to obtain good examples of Nepalese painting; Tibet, however, supplies a considerable number of works deserving of respectful notice.
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Painting is still extensively practised by Tibetan Lamas for the purposes of their ritualistic worship and as a source of income. Usually the compositions are depicted on long narrow banners of either silk or cotton. They may be painted either directly on the fabric or on a coat of plaster applied to it. Pictures on paper also exist. The silken banners obtained by Dr. Stein from a walled-up temple near the Chinese frontier, and dating from the seventh or eighth century, closely resemble those now made by the Lamas, who follow strictly prescribed ritual rules. The Lamas also execute frescoes on the temple walls, some of which, according to travellers, are remarkable compositions.
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Tibetan painting is generally more a matter of skilled craftsmanship than of fine art. The canonical process of manufacture has been fully described by Godwin Austen, who explains in detail the way in which a figure of Buddha is built up. The draughtsman, who hardly deserves to be called an artist, starts by drawing a long vertical rectangle, within which are inscribed a medial perpendicular line and sundry horizontal parallels at prescribed distances. The different organs of the body are then plotted out for insertion at certain intersections of the lines. For example, the face is plotted from the starting-point determined by the intersection of the medial perpendicular with the transverse line No. 17. The remaining parts of the body are worked out in a similar way, and other sacred objects, such as a *stūpa* (*chorten*, or *dāgaba*) are imaged on like principles.¹ Travellers tell us that the monks of the Greek communities at Mount Athos manufacture the sacred ikons in an equally mechanical fashion. It is obvious that such a practice is fatal to the development of creative art in the representation of objects of worship.
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¹ 'On the System of outlining the Figures of Deities and other Religious Drawings, as practised at Ladak' (*J. A. S. B.*, Part I, vol. xxxiii (1864), p. 151, with plates). 'Il est de règle, quand il s'agit de personnages, qu'on commence toujours par les yeux, qui, aussitôt terminés, doivent être purifiés au moyen de prières et de formules d'exorcisme de peur que quelque démon ne vienne à en prendre possession; c'est ce qui explique que tous les peintres sont des Lamas' (de Milloué, *Bod-Youl ou Tibet*, p. 295).
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The examination of specimens of Tibetan ritualistic paintings confirms the expectation formed from knowledge of the mechanical process enjoined, and reveals very slight artistic merit in most of them. They are redeemed from contempt chiefly by the colouring, which is often rich and harmonious, shades of indigo blue in particular being combined with black in a very effective manner. The execution of details, too, is often finished with characteristic Indian minuteness.
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I dissent strongly from the enthusiastic praise bestowed upon Tibetan art by Mr. Havell. The banner of Buddha Amitābha (his Plate XLIX),² described as 'splendid in drawing, colour, and composition', strikes me as a hard, lifeless piece of formalism, in which the features of the principal figure are barely indicated. The assertion that the hideous, sprawling, eight-armed deity and his attendants which form the subject of Mr. Havell's Plate LI are 'full of spirituality and the most refined artistic feeling' seems to my judgement to be wholly without justification. In the small figure of Asoka at the top of the same plate (enlarged as Plate L) the critic sees 'shining through Chinese and Tibetan superstitions, a reflection of the spirituality of the art of Ajantā, and some of the true sentiment of Indian art which inspired the sculptures of Boro-Būdūr'. My eyes see formal, mechanically drawn contours, a featureless face, and fingers like hooks. But the colouring, as usual, is harmonious and pleasing.
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² *Indian Sculpture and Painting.*
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The British Museum possesses a considerable collection of Tibetan banner-paintings on silk, mounted on rollers, kept partly in the Print Room, where the best of those brought by Col. Iggulden are preserved, and partly in the Ethnographical Department. Most of the pictures are distinctly Chinese in style, with little trace of Indian influence on the art, as distinguished from the subjects. But a few are more Indian than Chinese. One such is No. 1905/(5·20), 63 (measuring 2 feet 3 inches × 20 inches), with an embroidered border. The central figure is a seated Buddha of Indian style in the 'earth-touching' pose. The numerous minor figures in the scenes covering the field are, however, Chinese. An unpleasant Tantric Bodhisattva of little artistic value is depicted on No. 1905/(5·20), 57. The most characteristically Tibetan specimen, combining Indian with Chinese peculiarities, is No. 1905/(5·20), 62, which possesses considerable beauty as a scheme of colour, dark indigo blue predominating. The central figure is a horrible and repulsive Yama, or Death, wearing a garland of skulls. The field is mostly occupied by a series of scrolls in dark tints, of distinctively Tibetan form. In the upper section three small figures, a seated Buddha in Chinese costume, with on each side a Bodhisattva, or Tibetan Lama, wearing a tall, conical head-dress, are tolerably well executed. The painting does not look old, and its merit lies mainly in the colouring.
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The Tibetan pictures on cotton exhibited on the screen in Room VIII of the Indian Section of the Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington, include only one of any aesthetic interest, No. 2451 from the Schlagintweit collection, but even that is not of high quality.
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The considerable collection of Tibetan drawings and paintings, presented by Mr. Brian Hodgson to the Institut de France and still preserved there, has had the good fortune to have been described by two eminent scholars, M. Barthélemy St. Hilaire and M. A. Foucher. M. St. Hilaire, who formed a higher estimate of the artistic quality of a set of ten numbered paintings in the collection than M. Foucher can accept, criticized them generally in the following terms :—
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'Mais les monuments de sculpture et de peinture que nous venons de passer en revue sont très loin d'être dénués de mérite ; le dessin en est quelquefois très pur, les attitudes des personnages sont élégantes et naturelles. Il y a même, quoique plus rarement, une onction profonde dans la physionomie du Buddha et des principaux Bhikshous. . . . La composition est ordinairement régulière, quelquefois vaste et très bien ordonnée, comme l'atteste la description que j'ai donnée plus haut du troisième tableau tibétain.'
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No. 3, alluded to in the passage quoted, depicts various Buddhas and a crowd of worshippers. It is marred by the debased sensuality of the uppermost scene representing a Dhyānī-Buddha holding his Sakti, or female counterpart, in close embrace.
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Plate LXII. Buddha, with worshippers on earth and in clouds. (‘Tibet, No. 5’, Institut de France.)
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The Buddhism of Tibet has travelled far from the chaste asceticism of Gautama. The sculptures of Mathurā prove that similar corruption had invaded the Buddhist church in very early times. M. St. Hilaire considered No. 9, a large work measuring 1¼ metre in length by 70 cm. in breadth, to be ‘d'un travail presqu'aussi délicat que celui du numéro 3’. No. 10, which includes representations of devil-dances performed by Lamas wearing horrible masks, like those in the Gandhāra relief (*ante*, Plate XXX), is also commended.
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M. Foucher has kindly selected No. 5 as being one of the best and most suitable for reproduction (Plate LXII). It depicts Buddha in the ‘earth-touching’ pose surrounded by a host of worshippers on earth and in the clouds, and is framed in a pretty border. The figures of the adoring Lamas are numbered, I do not know why. Similar numbers are inserted in other pictures. I cannot think very highly of the picture as a work of art, apart from the colouring, which is, of course, lost in a photograph.
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The most interesting department of Tibetan, as of Mongolian, pictorial art is that of portraiture. The painted portraits should be compared with the bronze statuettes described *ante*, pp. 198–200. Excellent specimens of this branch of Tibetan art, which is less conventional than the pictures of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, are included in a packet of twenty-four ‘Pictorial Illustrations of Tibetan Buddhism’ in the Hodgson collection of the Institut de France. By the kindness of M. A. Foucher, who made the selection, I am able to offer two unpublished reproductions of these remarkable works, depicting holy Lamas, one of whom is ‘paisible’, and the other ‘terrible’.
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The portrait of the ‘paisible’ Lama is charming. His countenance shows something of the ‘onction profonde’ detected by M. St. Hilaire, and it is easy to believe that a young Tibetan saint bred in a monastery may look exactly like this presentment. The accessories are treated with delicate good taste, and the effect of the coloured original must be pleasing (Plate LXIII).
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The picture of the ‘terrible’ Lama is more curious than beautiful. He is seated on a tiger-skin, and seems to have evoked by his incantations the fearsome demon, perhaps Yama, or Death, with a chaplet of skulls, who appears on the right. The magician apparently is terrified by the success of his spells (Plate LXIV). All these Tibetan pictures represent fingers and toes with odd exaggeration. The flower-like cloud forms are the same as those already noticed in the wall-paintings of the Bikanīr palace (*ante*, p. 304).
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The valuable collection of objects illustrative of Buddhism formed by Prince E. Ukhtomskij, and now preserved at the Museum of the Emperor Alexander III, St. Petersburg, includes many Tibetan and Mongolian pictures, of which select specimens, including portraits, have been engraved in outline as illustrations of the Catalogue in Russian prepared by Prof. A. Grünwedel. The kindness of the author of the Catalogue and of Prince Dy. H. Ukhtomskij permits me to reproduce two of those illustrations, belonging to a miscellaneous class, and Prof. Grünwedel has supplied me with explanations in English.
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PLATE LXIII. Portrait of young Lama; Tibetan School. (Hodgson Collection, Institut de France.)
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PLATE LXIV. Portrait of a Lama evoking a demon; Tibetan School. (Hodgson Collection, Institut de France.)
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The first chosen is Mongolian rather than Tibetan, but the religion and art of Mongolia are so closely connected with those of Tibet, and through Tibet with India, that the picture will not be out of place here. The figure of a Buddha or a Bodhisattva seated on the clouds in the corner is quite Indian, the rest of the composition is on Chinese lines. The 'White-bearded Old Man', originally a Mongolian tutelary deity of the earth, the foe of all evil-doing, becomes Kshitipati ('Lord of the Earth') in Indian Buddhism; is identified in China with the genius of long life; in Japan with one of the eight gods of happiness; and now in Mongolia, at Urga and other places, with St. Nicholas of Moscow (Fig. 218).
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[Figure: FIG. 218. 'The White-bearded Old Man'; the Mongolian tutelary deity of the earth; Indian *Kshitipati*. (No. 114 in Grünwedel's *Catalogue of the Ukhtomskij collection*.)]
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The second illustration (Fig. 219) is one of a set of thirty block-prints used by Tibetan Lamas as patterns for 'pouncing', or stencilling, sacred pictures on *kakemonós*, or silken strips. To the upper left of the picture we see Buddha Sākyamuni, clad in Indian fashion, expounding to four disciples the story of the dead sea-monster whose bones lie on the shore. Once upon a time, in a previous birth, the Buddha had been that monster and got his living by devouring men and other creatures. The boat with its occupants shown below was rushing into the monster's jaws, when one of the crew invoked the holy name of Buddha. The abashed monster allowed his prey to escape, preferring to die of starvation rather than incur the guilt of despising the sacred name. The boat then came safely to land, as shown in the upper part of the composition. Ancient art frequently repeats an object or person in two or three situations in a single picture, and this block-print follows the old traditional practice. This queer Tibetan legend may possibly prove to be the key to the enigmatic medallion at Bharhut (Cunningham, *Stūpa of Bharhut*, Plate XXXIV, 2), hitherto unexplained, which represents a gaping sea-monster in the act of swallowing
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[Figure: FIG. 219. The Repentant Monster. (No. 1, p. 32, Grünwedel's *Catalogue of Ukhtomskij collection*.)]
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a boat with three men, while a second boat with a similar crew appears to be drifting to like destruction.¹ As a work of art, the interest of the sketch reproduced lies chiefly in its freedom from the formal conventionalism of most Tibetan pictures. The Ukhtomskij collection includes many examples of orthodox paintings on regulation lines.
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¹ M. Foucher suggests that the monster may be Rāhu, the eclipse demon.