Asian masterworks gathered by Rockefellers on view at the Kimbell Art Museum
A new exhibit features world class Asian antiquities assembled by late philanthropists John D. Rockefeller 3rd and his wife Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller between the 1940s and 1970s.
It includes Buddhist and Hindu sculptural icons and porcelain treasures.
“They wanted to acquire things of great meaning and importance across all Asian cultures,” said Jennifer Casler Price, curator of Asian, African, and Ancient American Art at the Kimbell. “But they wanted to share it with a public audience because they really felt that art could bridge that cultural gap between Americans and Asians.”
Co-organized by the American Federation of Arts and the Asia Society Museum, “Buddha, Shiva, Lotus, Dragon” is on view at the Kimbell Art Museum from June 27 thru Sept. 5. The traveling exhibit includes 67 sculptures, bronzes, ceramics, and metalwork including Indian Chola bronzes, Southeast Asian sculptures, and East Asian ceramics spanning two millennia.
“The Rockefellers focused on collecting works of exceptional quality under the guidance of renowned connoisseur and historian of Asian art and then director of the Cleveland Museum of Art Sherman Lee, no relation,” said Kimbell director Eric Lee.
This resulted in a collection of 300 works that were eventually bequeathed to the Asia Society Museum in New York.
“The objects represent ancient artistic practices from Cambodia, China, Indian, Japan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Tibet, and Vietnam,” said Michele Wije, curator of exhibitions at American Federation of Arts.
The show explores three main themes: Buddhism and Hinduism, which originated in India, and how they were disseminated throughout the rest of Asia. Many of the works come from a burial context.
In the early period of Buddhism, up until the 1st century of this era, the Buddha was only shown in symbols. From the Kushan period in what is now Pakistan, “Head of Buddha” is an early example of the Buddha represented in human form. It looks Hellenistic with a Greco-Roman profile.
From India in the 6th century, “Buddha” is a copper alloy figure that shows the repertoire of iconography that developed to identify the religion’s founder. Represented as a monk in a robe, attributes include elongated earlobes, an ushnisha, or top knot, to represent wisdom, webbed fingers and toes, a lotus to signify purity, and an Urna, or dot in the middle of the forehead, for spiritual truth.
With an expanded pantheon of cosmic Buddhas, the sculptures begin to capture the spread of Buddhism across Asia. There’s Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, for example, the embodiment of compassion and the Buddha of the future, Maitreya. Dragons appear in works from China and from Cambodia there is Devarāja, the “god-king” concept of a ruler as the incarnation of a deity.
A section of ceramics and metalwork goes all the way back to Neolithic times in China. These cups, jars, bowls, and bottles were made to hold food and drink in domestic settings, or for ceremonies. Some of these items were buried with their owners for the afterlife. Several gorgeous pieces capture the development of Chinese porcelain from the Tang dynasty of the 7th century all the way to the early 18th century Qing period.
The show ends with Hindu sculpture. From 12th century Chola period in India, “Saint Sambandar” portrays the 7th century child poet-saint with dance movements. After drinking milk from a statue of Shiva “the Destroyer” and Parvati “the mother goddess” as a three-year-old, the boy spent the rest of his life dancing and singing to the two gods, only to die at his wedding when he was 16.
One of the exhibit’s highlights from 11th century India, “Ganesha” is a sculpture of one of the best-known Hindu gods. Created by Parvati out of clay, Ganesha was beheaded by Shiva. But Shiva ended up replacing Ganesha’s original head with that of the first animal he saw, which turned out to be an elephant. The Hindu god of beginnings traditionally worshiped before starting a major enterprise is portrayed as a chubby child with a chakra eating sweets out of his trunk.
“Shiva as Lord of the Dance (Shiva Nataraja)” is another sculpture from the Chola period. Shiva takes on many forms, but as “cosmic lord of the dance” surrounded by flames that represent the cosmos, he’s a warrior and ruler who destroys the universe and dances it back into creation.
“Every now and then he has to do some cosmic housecleaning,” Price said. “He is in this dance pose with his leg lifted and his arms in different kinds of gestures. Dancing the cosmos into being, he’s trampling a dwarf who represents ignorance and illusion.”