The art and architecture of India - Buddhist, Hindu, Jain (Art Ebook)

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SIAM 427
One of the great masterpieces of early Siamese
sculpture is a bronze torso of a Bodhisattva,
most likely a form of Avalokitesvara, preserved
in the National Museum at Bangkok
[358]. The term Srivijaya has been applied to
this and a few related images to indicate that
they date from a period of Javanese dominance
of the Malay Peninsula. This object is very
closely related to the late Buddhist art of Bengal,
as represented by the bronzes of Nalanda and
the ninth- and tenth-century sculpture of the
Pala Dynasty. The exquisite precision in the
complicated details of jewelled accessories and
the way the sharpness and hardness of these
dehanchement that is almost universal in Indian
images of all periods.
The end of the Dvaravati Empire comes with
a Khmer invasion in the tenth century and the
establishment of a viceroyalty at the capital of
Lopburi, about eighty miles north of Bangkok.
This is a phase of art in Siam that is simply a
local off-shoot of the developed Khmer style of
the Angkor Period [359]. The Buddha heads of
this period, difficult to distinguish from actual
Cambodian work, are characterized, as were the
very earliest icons, by certain very definite
Siamese traits: the very straight overhanging
brows, pointed noses, and broad, prominent
features contrast with and enhance the softness
chins are all
hall-marks of the Lopburi style,
of the flesh parts are not far removed from the
style of the Sanchi torso of the Pala Period
[197]. The sinuous twist of the body indicates
that, when complete, the figure was cast in
the pose of the three bends (tribhanga), the
359. Buddha from Wat Mahadhatu, Lopburi.
Bangkok, National .Museum
as is the fondness for a particularly elaborate
conical ushnisha. 2
As early as the ninth century, groups of the
Thai people of Yunnan in south-western China
had again begun to move westward into what is
360. Head of Buddha from Chiengmai.
Bangkok, National Museum