Tag Archives: Student Life

Buddha

First off, let me apologize for my terrible selfie-skills and the poor lighting at the museum, there wasn’t a whole lot I could’ve done about that. Today, I had the pleasure of attending an exhibition on Himalayan art at the Rubin Art Museum.

At the beginning of the exhibition there was a wall of text describing how a vast majority of the art from the region were religious pieces of work. However, the two dominant religions in the area are a far stretch from the “traditional” monotheistic religions that us Westerners are so accustomed to. No, in the Himalayas they generally practice a form of either Buddhism or Hinduism. Now, in my mind almost any organized religion has ulterior motives aside from simply spreading their faith. If you look at any of the Christian churches that have come to be, they were/are immense sources of power and influence, often with a single human, mortal person heading the organization. One of the most beautiful things in my mind about both, Buddhism and Hinduism, are the myriad of different sects that they have; to my knowledge they have far more sects than any Western religion. I think that in these two religions there is far more accepted for one to become their own connection to their faith, forming their own little version of the religion by picking and choosing the tenets to live by.

As I wandered the gallery I looked on, reading each new description, describing the different kinds of deities and what they all represented. All of the artwork created a stark contrast in my mind, comparing European religious art and culture to Himalayan art and culture. At least by my interpretation, all of the art almost channeled the serenity of either the scene being depicted or the serenity that the artist must have felt while crafting their work. In my eyes the works of art only brightened the contrast slowly forming in my mind. I could see how the Himalayan artwork appeared to always flow; rarely were there sharp corners, straight lines, or much geometry at all really. This art had few well defined boundaries, one could roughly see where two colors melded together, all the different components coming together to create a greater whole. This was yet another contrast I found; I find that Eastern artwork has a greater tendency to emphasize the work as a whole instead of specific intricacies within the piece of work. Some may say that this means that Westerners became more technical, and perhaps this is even true, however Westerners can often lose scope in their artwork. Western works can become too narrow or too intricate to the point where an observer finds themselves feeling lost amongst a sea of details.

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by my experience at the museum. I fully expected to find myself rushing out of there as soon as I could. However, I actually found the artwork to be thought provoking. I found myself pondering multiple religions and the lifestyles that is generally associated with each religion. I found myself comparing East and West (maybe this was a bit of personal reflection). And with today’s class taken into consideration, perhaps I should be thinking about which path I’ll try to take in search of my own personal enlightenment.