Stone Head of Buddha

The museum has acquired an early eighth­ century Tang dynasty (618-907) Buddha head that comes from a cave-temple in the Longmen Mountains in China's Henan province. The head, sculpted in three-quarter relief has long ears with pendulous lobes and bears a solemn expression with down­ cast eyes beneath arching brows that curve out from the bridge of the nose. Evidence of original chisel marks can be seen on the round cheeks, nose, and forehead, and traces of red pigment remain on the lips. In contrast to the dark gray limestone exposed on the back where the head was roughly removed from the wall, the lighter yellow or tan color, of the sculpted surfaces is a result of layers of pigments or patina. The hair is carved in curls and wavy lines across the forehead, and at the top of the head is the usnisa, a high, rounded protuberance that is a distinguishing mark of Buddha imagery. Strong court patronage for Buddhism during the Northern Wei duynasty (368-534) led to the construction of importantn cave-temples at Yungang in Shanxi province. After the court relocated south to Luoyang, Henan, construction began on the nearby Longmen cave-temples in 494 and was continued for over a thousand years by later dynasties including the Tang. In total, over 1,300 caves, 785 niches, and other structures including more than 100,000 statues and steles were carved into stone cliffs extending across approximately 1,000 meters of the Longmen Mountains. The Longmen shrines, with those at Dunhuang in Gansu province and at Yungang, are some of the most important Buddhist cave-temples in China. While the museum has sculptures from both the Dunhuand and Yungang sites, this head is the first example from Longmen. The sculpture, long recognized as being from the Longmen site, has been well published in Chinese and Western scholarship. The statue entered the collection of the noted dealer and collecotr Dikran Kelekian (1868-1951) in New York by 1925. While in Kelekian's collection, it was illustrated in Osvald Siren's Chinese Sculpture from the Fifth to the Fourteenth Century (1925). The head then entered the collection of Sir Rudolf Bing, the general manager of the Metropolitan Opera in New York from 1950 to 1972. Bing probably acquired the statue after he moved to the United States in 1949. The standard conventions of early sculpture often resulted in stiff formulaic deities in highly stilized, rigid poses. Durign the Tang dynasty, the representation of the human body and its movement began to inform the depiction of Buddhist deities. This transitional moment is captured in the museum's head, which combines meditative serenity and iconic imagery with the graceful elements of flesh and bone that allow viewers to perceive both a human and religious connection.