Reflections of the Buddha - The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts

Cube Gallery Lower Main Gallery
15. Seated Bodhisattva Tārā in her “Green
Manifestation” (Duoluo pusa),
1403 – 1424
China, Ming dynasty, 1368 – 1644; gilt
bronze; 6� x 4� x 3� in.; Harvard Art
Museums / Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Gift
of Hester C. Clapp and Susan C. Wolkoff in
memory of their parents, Usher P. and Sylvia
S. Coolidge, 1992.289
Tārā (Guiding Star) helps sentient beings cross over the
ocean of existence (samsāra), from the impure state to
one of pure enlightenment. Generally seen as the
feminine consort of the masculine Avalokiteśvara, Tārā
is known as the bodhisattva who saves all beings from
danger. Of Tārā’s twenty-one forms, her green manifestation
is considered her most dynamic, for she is posed as
though ready to spring into action to help anyone in
need. The Chinese Emperor Yongle, a Vajrayāna Buddhist
who reigned from 1403 – 1424, established workshops in
China that produced such sculptures intended for donation
to Buddhist temples.
16. Standing Bodhisattva Maitreya (Maijdari),
second half 17th century
Attributed to Zanabazar, Mongolian, 1635 –
1723; gilt bronze with blue pigment in the hair
and traces of other pigments in the eyes and
mouth; 24� x 8 � x 7⅝ in.; Harvard Art
Museums / Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Gift of
John West, 1963.5
The Bodhisattva Maitreya (Loving One) resides in Tusita
Heaven, from where persons are reborn as human
Buddhas. It is believed that Maitreya will be the next
human Buddha after Śākyamuni. This sculpture is attributed
to the Mongolian monk Zanabazar, who at age
fourteen entered Tibet to meet the leaders of the Geluk
School of the Dalai Lama. Consequently, Zanabazar was
responsible for the exportation of the school’s scholarship,
practices, and art to Mongolia in the seventeenth
century.
17. Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara in the Form of
Khasarpana Lokeśvara,
late 11th or early 12th century
India, Bihar or Bengal; Pāla period,
c. 700 – 1200; schist; 37½ x 18½ x 6¾ in.;
Asia Society, New York: Mr. and Mrs. John
D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection, 1979 . 040
A form of the Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara
is Khasarpana Lokeśvara, an eighteen-year-old who is
beautiful, peaceful, and smiling. Out of compassion, he
feeds nectar to Sūcīmukha, who, lustful and greedy in a
former life, is doomed to suffer insatiable hunger in the
next. (Sūcīmukha’s condition is exacerbated by his tiny
mouth and narrow neck.) The sculpture’s backslab is
pierced so that Avalokiteśvara’s torso is freed from the
background and may be adorned with garments and
jewelry.
18. Blue Black, 2000, Ellsworth Kelly
American, born 1923; painted aluminum
panels; 336 x 70 x 2⅛ in.; The Pulitzer
Foundation for the Arts
In a 1950 letter to John Cage, Ellsworth
Kelly stated, “I am not interested in
painting as it has been accepted for so
long — to hang on walls of houses as
pictures. To hell with pictures — they should be the wall
— even better — on the outside wall — of large buildings.
Or stood up outside as billboards or a kind of
modern ‘icon.’ We must make our art like the Egyptians,
the Chinese . . . with their relation to life. It should meet
the eye direct.”