wall-painting BM-1925-0619.20

Period:Unknown Production date:6thC-7thC (?)
Materials:plaster
Technique:painted
Subjects:buddha
Dimensions:Height: 47 centimetres Width: 32 centimetres

Description:
Fragment of a wall-painting showing the Buddha. He is seated before a mandorla consisting of several layers in different colours with his hands held in meditation pose (dhyani mudra). The brown robe is very schematised and shows a dinstinctive drapery pattern with a grouping of fold lines in three. The head with the elongated earlobes is surrounded by a black and red nimbus and turned slightly to the right with the eyes looking into the same direction. The red, green, brown, pink, black and white pigments used have flaked off in some places, but are still very vivid.
IMG


Comments:Zwalf 1985The art of Khotan, once a flourishing Buddhist centre, is known from only a few fragments. There must have been numerous shrines with painted walls. This Buddha seated in a niche has the characteristic stance and proportions of similar small figures, all looking in the same direction and varying only in the colour of the robes, which covered whole walls as ‘Thousand Buddha’ images. The robes show schematised drapery patterns, originally much freer, derived from the art of Gandhara: note the grouping of fold lines in threes, and the sharp angle made by the upper edge of the garment of the neck.