0.INTRODUCTION Buddhism has lasted throughout the centuries in the Tibetan society and in many aspects of the people’s daily lives. Therefore, it is hardly surprising that the furniture in the past was aimed for monastic and religious purposes. But throughout the years and due to the customs and liturgical rituals of the population, this furniture was progressively adapted to the new th th functions in the secular life. From the 18 and 19 centuries onwards, a particular part of the lay population settled in the richest areas or in the capital, making the concept of wellness to rise and starting to appreciate decoration and furniture. At that time, other types of needs arose. Certain aristocratic classes and even urban middle classes started to stock up on new decorations and complements for their homes, therefore giving a boost to the handicrafted production of furniture at a local level. The rise of the Cultural Revolution in China (1957-1969) and the huge destruction of the artistic Tibetan heritage made lots of people aware of the situation. The polychromed wooden furniture did not stir up the same degree of interest among the Chinese population as the thang-kas or the statues did and that was the reason why it was not taken into account. A consequence of this was that the furniture was simply just burnt and destroyed together with monasteries, but those prototypes which survived thanks to being protected from any harm were redistributed among other monasteries and homes; however, it was still looked down on and became the target of vandalism – particularly those polychromed works with religious paintings. The majority of works which were not protected by the largest monasteries and those which had not been destroyed survived unnoticed in the kitchens of many homes or, in many occasions, because they were used for agricultural purposes: to contain earth, grain or tools. Many of these items were not recovered until the nineties, when it seems that the interest of international collectors started to grow. Many Tibetan families and merchants from the Kham region also saw the opportunity of trading those worthless items of furniture as a means towards economic development. Those unique items, which were in Asian art galleries dispersed in East China, Hong Kong, Australia, Japan and the USA, would end up being copied in the first cases, to be sold later on from Bali or India together with other native material with colonial aesthetics. As a consequence of these practices and of a recent increase of the demand, the trade of antique polychromed furniture and the currently-manufactured furniture starts to proliferate in the marketplaces of Lhasa and Kathmandu (Nepal), with highly visible antique shops and galleries in the busiest areas. In the West, we have had the privilege of enjoying many examples of Tibetan art for many years, for example exhibitions of thang-ka art and other great bronze and copper sculpture collections. More and more, museums try to get items which fascinate an expert audience, who has had the opportunity to get information from their formal education, hundreds of specialized books and the existing documented material. Nevertheless, the richness of the Tibetan polychromed furniture becomes a highly unrecognized and unknown field, without stipulation in the Tibetan art. As a consequence, various collectors and academics aware of this situation have devoted to studying these items during the last twenty years at a functional level, but most of all its iconographic interpretation, following its traces throughout the last centuries. These are people who have published their experiences and knowledge in articles in magazines about Asian art as an only source of widespread coverage, as it is another example of art and design strongly influenced by culture and the commerce with China and India throughout many years.
Currently, COSMOGRAMA – the platform of cultural management and exhibitions – is organizing this project in the framework of the itinerant exhibitions planning for 2011, 2012 and 2013.
is an ethnographic and decorative arts exhibition and the final result of a meticulous compilation of items made with sense and visual sensibility; also a project of profound research which was carried out in different areas of the massif of the Himalayas, but particularly along the Lhasa-Kathmandu axis as a base for expeditions, research and documentation. Antique art with contemporary relevance: polychromed furniture with examples of traditional tools, sacred objects and the veneration rituals which are always present in the Tibetan atmosphere. In the year 2006, it was started a line of cultural research about the motives and universal nature of the symbology which these type of artistic representations on wood hide: traditional paintings by anonymous artists who have transferred the job and the artistic knowledge from generation to generation and which tell all the aspects of the same spiritual path through a complex iconographic structure which deepens in their culture, society and religion. Tibetan Buddhism is a culture known because of the empathy which generates in us, but it is slightly known except for its archetypes. Settled in the Himalayas and coexisting in the same geographical context (Tibet, Bhutan, North India and some areas and valleys from Nepal), it is still fighting to maintain its most ancestral values and traditions through the cult of religion, mythology and the shamanic and tantric beliefs. Throughout the centuries, it has become one of the most fascinating cultures of Central Asia. We invite you to enjoy visual meditation, to reflect upon the philosophy which emanates from these items and the complex iconographic tradition of its symbols, patterns and decorative designs. Beginning with the origins, the meanings and the functions, we will guide you through history for a better understanding of the conceptual framework of faith and religion, in the core of a society and of a thousand-year-old culture like this. In this dossier, we explain why it is the first time that an itinerant exhibition is presented and has these characteristics, aims, line of thinking and contents, with some examples and visual details of polychromies and objects together with an interpretation and iconographic and symbolic analysis. We discuss production and we will show the hiring rates, if you require them. Pau Prat Orriols. Technical Coordinator.
1. PROPOSAL OF EXHIBITION 1.1 Hiring, production and thematic concepts The proposal of an itinerant exhibition is meant for the local, regional or national museums and archives, town halls, private entities, associations, foundations, charitable work, among other entities. We offer the exhibition and its exclusivity temporarily, including the rights of exploitation rights of the benefits derived from the parallel activities or from the selling of tickets. The project presents all the contents and definitive idea of the exhibition. The graphic images and escenography (informative panels, notes, vinyls, maps, photographic material, among others) have been designed, but its adjustment and application to the museography of each venue (tangible exhibiting mechanisms: lights, podiums, glass cabinets, captions, paintings, among others), the edition of the catalogue and communication are aspects which are still to be determined in the final production on behalf of the receiving organization. From this point on, we are at your disposal to manage and mediate the hiring, while looking for the best way to sponsor and promote the event and also for a better contractual adjustment or the agreement which is most adequate for all the parts involved. The symbols of Tibetan Buddhism can be found in representations in architecture (monasteries, houses, stupas, among others), are visible in nature (stones, mountains and peaks), are works of art (thang-kas, sculptures and figures) and are also polychromed and carved on the furniture. Precisely on the latter matter, this exhibition has no precedent in Europe, because we show items with spectacular paintings: Buddhic images, animals and mythological characters, custom scenes and geometric designs. They are icons which will strike the audience with the strength of its motives, the colours and the artistic technique, but most of all we are able to see the anthropologic reflection of the Buddhism as a spiritual path. The themes in the exhibition will basically be the followings:
> The decorative designs and the type of Tibetan secular and religious furniture: materials, building techniques, functionality, themes, patterns and motives (origins and meanings); with the influence of the trading of products and fabrics with China and India as a source of inspiration and the syncretisms with cultures like Newari, Kashmir and Mongol. A video-report will show you the typological varieties, the most common affectations and the process of restoration and maintainance of the polychromes. > The first auspicious symbols of offerings and emblems, the animals and mythological creatures as an essential and vital part. Review of the portrayal of offerings and attributes in tantric art and religious rituals, but also of the principal figures and deities in the Tibetan pantheon (mudras) which appear in the polychromes. > Localisation of the different areas and countries with Tibetan culture in the Himalayas. History, establishment and evolution of Tibetan Buddhism in the Himalayas: origins, orders and schools. The monastic life and the spiritual practices. We list some architectonic and natural symbols and cultural expression and recognition. Audiovisual presentations, conferences, exhibitions of photographs or other parallel activities are also considered as optional. A new volunteering activity for children is introduced so that they can identify and draw animals and natural symbols. The graphic and photographic support will help to understand the geographic and cultural context and the iconographic details. In this exhibition, there are 70 polychromed items of medium and large sizes, 15 wooden and leather items, more than 75 references to tools and objects (rituals and tantric), metal and wooden complements and 5 copper figures.
1.2 Types of furniture > Large chest for storage purposes called Gaam. > Medium- and small-sized leather or wooden portable chests lined with yak skin and round boxes to keep thang-ka scrolls. > Buffet sideboard furniture with two, four and six doors called Chagam. > Buffet sideboard furniture or cupboards for offerings, to keep ritual objects and protective deities and to offer the Tormas and jewels called Torgam and Yangam. > Small fixed and folding tables and thrones/altars used to eat, drink tea and pray called Chogtse or Shรถchok. > Little tables used to read religious texts called Pegam. > Polychromed doors, windows and panels. > Furniture with grinders for praying. > Furniture from sanctuaries or altars to put religious images, offerings and lights called Chรถsum.
“In the present world situation it has become increasingly necessary to develop a certain extent of unity among the followers of the various religions. What is more, such unity is not an impossible goal to reach�
The 14th DALAI LAMA.
The wheel and deer emblem The Golden Wheel with eight spokes flanked by two deers (male and female) represents the first speech by Buddha, delivered in the deer park of Sarnath, close to Varanasi (India), where Shakyamuni came back after finding revelation in Both Gaya. Usually, this symbol is found in the front part of the roofs of monasteries, where it shines like the symbol of Buddhadharma. There are signs that this symbol is older that Buddhism. In fact, they had already been found represented in the clay seals which were digged up from the antique civilization in the Indo Valley (circa 2,500 BC), but then the two deer flanked the deity Shiva Pashupati (lord of the animals). That first speech was probably devoted to Shiva and the Sarnath park had probably been sacred, a place where the first yoginis of Shaivism and the first disciples of Buddha had probably lived. It is highly probable that the first Buddhists had taken the image of Pashupati with the two deer and put the wheel instead, becoming the everlasting symbol of creation, teaching and the supremacy of Buddha.
1.3 Examples of instruments, secular tools, ritual and religious objects
"The Tibetan style of furnishing is elaborate and luxurious: it can easily degenerate into heaviness, clumsiness and over-elaboration. But when it is carried out with taste it has a bold, barbaric fascination than can hardly be excelled. It is a style which seems natural to a country of boundless plateaux, to a people who set out on 2000 mile journeys on horseback as if it were the most natural things in the world. People who are used to violent gales and extreme cold, who pass with ease from the rigours of asceticism to hearty enjoyment of life. A great deal of the merit of the Tibetan style is due to the taste of Tibetan craftsmen; their liking for ornamentation on the one hand and their feeling for color, materials, surfaces, on the other. Tibetan teapots, for instance, looks like fantastic little round fortresses of brass and silver, with dragons entwined round the spout or handle; they are always a symphony of various metals; and the same applies to the coffee pots, beer jars, cups, travelling flasks, water jugs, trumpets, boxes for amulets, and a hundred other articles of everyday use. Their painting and sculpture are in Indian or sometimes Chinese style, partially Tibetanized, but in their furnishings the Tibetan spirit expresses itself with much greater freedom". Fosco Maraini "Secret Tibet" (1952) "A love of colour and texture is the most obvious feature of Tibetan painted furniture. Tibetan artists often filled every available space on their furniture with paint, gesso and gilding. Some of the decorative patterns they used are based on native Tibetan motifs, others are designs that were absorbed by Tibetan culture long ago or made popular in more recent times as a result of trade with China. The richness and variety of the Tibetan tradition seems to be partly the result of this contacts and exchanges, extending back more than a thousand years. We can roughly divide Tibetan decorative motifs into three classes on the basis of their origins: religious symbols, decorative designs and auspicious symbols". Chris Buckley “Tibetan Furniture� (2005)
1.4 Examples of polychromed iconographic details carved on wood
1.5 Example of technical and typological cataloguing of symbols and furniture
TECHNICAL DATA. Reference number: F-1008
1.6 Example of an analysis of polychromed iconographic representation This detail of the central part of a wooden door polychromed on canvas (Ref: F-1156. 59x82x8 cm.) represents a Wheel of Existence or Bhavachakra (Skt.). This item is found more often represented in its various forms in the Thang-ka art.
1.7 Example of iconographic identification and wrathful symbols (Ref: F-1165)
Example of an architectonic symbol. Stupa or Chörten of the Lamayaru Monastery. Ladakh, Jammu and Kashmir, India.
Central part of a copper statue of goddess Drolma (Green Tara). Dharmachakra Mudra.
The Stupa or Caitya is a memorial that represents the mind of Buddha and consecrates his physical remains with the attributes of many deities (Buddhist pantheon). The stupa is white or golden and is often held by a solid structure of stone or square base of lotus called the ‘lion's throne’; the bottom-up structure consists of a semi-spherical dome with a relic cavity and a superior capital composed of a maximum of thirteen concentric spheres. In the upper part, a red half moon, a solar disk and a flame are depicted. Symbolically, the stupa embodies a complex set of iconographic meanings and each of these components represents a specific aspect of the path to enlightenment.
1.8 Diagram and list of iconographic symbols, decorative designs and patterns The decorative designs we can see in the display of items of the collection are the result of many cultural and commercial influences over the centuries, but also of the adaptation of the oldest Tibetan designs. The union between the most emblematic iconographic symbols of Buddhism and the decorative designs and patterns (natural and geometric) are the examples that we have listed below for further analysis: TIBETAN PANTHEON (Main figures, Gods and Deities) AND MUDRAS (hand gestures) Buddhas: Sakyamuni (Sakya Thukpa), 5 Dhyani Buddhas (Vairochana, Amoghasiddhi, Akshobya, Ratnasambhava, and Amitabha), Medicine Buddha (Menlha) and Jampa (Maitreya). Bodhisattvas: Chenresing (Avalokitesvara), Jampeliang (Manjushri), Drolma (Green Tara) i Drolkar (White Tara). Protective deities or Dharmapalas: Nagpo Chempo (Mahakala), Chana Dorje (Vajrapani), Palden Lamo (Shri Devi), Demchok (Chakrasamvara) and Dorje Jigje (Yamantaka). Historical figures: Gurú Rimpoché (Padmasambhava), Tsongkhapa, 5th Dalai Lama, Songsen Gampo King, Milarepa, Naropa and Tilopa. Contemporary figures: Karmapa, Panchen Lama and 14th Dalai Lama (Gyalwang Tenzing Gyatsog).
LANDSCAPE ELEMENTS, FLOWERS AND COSMOLOGICAL SYMBOLS > Rock formations > Water > Fire (flames) > Air (clouds) > Sky > Aura lines > The Lotus > Lotus thrones > Flowers and leaves > The mandala offering > Mount Meru > The sun and moon.
THE AUSPICIOUS SYMBOLS > THE EIGHT AUSPICIOUS SYMBOLS > The Wheel
> The victory banner > The endless or glorius knot > The conch shell > The lotus > The treasure vase > The golden fishes > The parasol > THE EIGHT AUSPICIOUS SUBSTANCES > The mustard seed > The vermilion powder > The right-turning conch shell > The bilba fruit > The durva grass > The curds or yogurt > The precious medicine > The mirror > THE FIVE ATTRIBUTES OF SENSORY ENJOYMENT > Touch > Taste > Smell > Sound > Sight or form
SYMBOLIC EMBLEMS AND OFFERINGS: THE PERFECT WORLDS > The wheel and deer emblem > The seven water bowl offerings > The emblem of the three great bodhisattvas: lotus, book, and sword rising above a lake (and flanked by a double headed duck and parrot) > The six symbols of long life: Shou-Lao > The four friends or harmonious brothers: elephant, monkey, hare and partridge.
> THE CHAKRAVARTIN
> The Seven Possessions of The Chakravartin or the Seven precious Jewels: The Wheel, The Jewel, The Queen, The Minister, The Elefant, The Horse and General. >The Seven Possessions of The Chakravartin or the Seven Auxiliary Jewels: The Sword, The Naga skin, The Royal house, The Robes, The Royal gardens, The Throne, and The Boots. >The Seven Jewel Insignia of The Chakravartin: The coral branch, The triple-eyed gem, The general’s insignia, The minister’s earrings, The queen’s earrings, The elephant’s tusks, The unicorn or rhino horn.
ANIMALS AND MYTHICAL CREATURES
> The elephant > The deer > The tiger > The lion and snow-lion > The horse and wind-horse > The four supernatural creatures of the four directions: (dragon, garuda, tiger and lion) > The makara (water or sea monster) > The garuda (lord of the birds) > The Nagas (the serpent spirits that inhabit underworld) > The dragon and tibetan dragon > The pheasant, the phoenix an the crane > The parrot > The kirtimukha, Zeeba or Zipak (the face of majesty or greed monster) > The three victorious creatures of harmony: The eight-limbed (or lion-garuda), the fish with hair, and the makara-snail > Birds > The hare > The mongoose > The red rooster, green snake and black pig > The dog, wolf and jackal > The yack > The buffalo > The six ornament throne of enlightment.
HAND EMBLEMS, RITUAL ATTRIBUTES, AMULETS AND PEACEFUL OFFERINGS > The three jewels > The amulet box > The water pot or flask > The incense-burner or censer > Gzi stone > The mirror > The ritual vase > Jewels, precious gems and wheels of joy) > The crystal > The rosary (or mala) > The Stupa (chaitia or chörten) > The image of the Buddha > The book (with manuscripts and sutras) > Peacock feathers > The yak-tail flywhisk > The tea-pot > The tsampa pot > The knife with “chopsticks” > Butter lamps > Coral offerings.
MONASTIC AND CEREMONIAL MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS > Long (and short) brass trumpet, or long horn (Dungchen) > Big and small ceremonial or hand drum (with sickle-shaped stick) > Short trumpet > Monastic flat cymbals > Conch-shell horn > Oboe.
INSTRUMENTS, AND WRATHFUL RITUAL IMPLEMENTS > The curved knife or chopper > Double-sided hand drum (Damaru) > The ritual dagger (Phurba) > The tantric staff (khatvanga) > The double or crossed vajra (or dorje) > The bell > The vajra (or dorje) > The thighbone trumpet (kangling) > The sorcerer’s magical horn > The skull-cup (kapala) > Skeleton club and corpses.
TORMAS AND WRATHFUL OFFERINGS
> Piece of skull > The heart > Intestines or entrails > Dismembered body parts (ex: arms and legs) > Flayed skins and skulls friezes > The six bone ornaments and five-skull crown > The sculpted butter offering cake: The Torma > The wrathful offering of the five senses > The inner offeing
GEOMETRIC BORDERS AND TEXTILE PATTERNS > Interlock of chains, endless knots, squares and the swastika symbols > Chinese symbol of longevity: “Fu-ya” and “Shou” > Armour and chain mail designs > Turtle shell > Pattern “Y” variations > Brocade, scrolls and crests > Knots and silk ribbons
1.9 Poster and Synopsis
1.10 Sponsorship Benefits > Display the picture/company logo in the credits of the catalog, in the diptychs, conference programs, invitation flyers, etc. > Important advantages in the tax system of nonprofit organizations and of tax incentives for the companies involved in sponsorship. > Private and guided tours for a certain number of guests from companies and the organization of a cocktail reception on the occasion of the première event. > Recovery of the invested capital and the economic profit through the collection of the tickets’ sale to the exhibition and related activities (conferences, courses, catalog sales, merchandising, among others).
1.11 Contact Information Mr.Pau Prat: info@cosmograma.eu (Barcelona, SPAIN) / Phone: +34 619.938.376 germay1@cosmograma.eu (GERMANY) / france1@cosmograma.eu (FRANCE) Organized by:
Special collaboration of: