Page 251 - Christies March 15 2017 Fujita Museum

In the present stele, the drapery clings to the
fgures’ bodies, revealing their corporality even
if not their actual anatomical structure. This
style refects the arrival of a new wave of Indian
infuence likely introduced to China via small
sculptures that monks returning from pilgrimages
to India carried home with them. In style, the
stele relates closely to one in the collection of
the Eisei Bunkō, Tokyo7. The fgures also show a
kinship to those in the small, Sui-period, bronze
altarpiece in the collection of the Museum of Fine
Arts, Boston (22.407), which bears an inscribed
date of 593. In terms of the relationship of the
drapery to bodies, the fgures on this stele also
might be compared to the Sui-period sculpture of
a Standing Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara (Guanyin)
in the collection of the Harvard Art Museums
(1943.53.43)8.

Like the Sui stele just discussed, the Fujita Tang-

dynasty stele is of Han-stele type, with niches

on the front and back that feature groups of

Buddhist fgures and with three small, vertically

set niches on either side, each of which includes a

Buddha seated in meditation. In the niche on the

Tang stele’s front face the Buddha Shakyamuni

sits in dhyanasana pose on a lotus pedestal below

the tiled roof of a temple hall from which tassels

hang; he holds his hands held in the abhaya- and

varada-mudras, the combined gestures revealing

that he is preaching. The young disciple Ananda

stands at the Buddha’s right, while the elderly

disciple Kashyapa stands at his left, his wizened

face and protruding ribs suggesting his great age.

Fig. 1. Stone sculpture, Sui dynasty. Eisei Bunko Collection. After Satburo Matsubara, The Path of Chinese Buddhist Sculpture, A serene-faced bodhisattva appears alongside
vol. 2, Later Six Dynasties and Sui, Published by Yoshikawa Kobunkan, Tokyo, 1995, no. 544. each disciple, while a ferce-faced dvarapala
guardian fgure (仁王) stands at each outside
圖一 隋 石四面造像碑 東京永青文庫藏

edge of the composition, completing the group.

Each bodhisattva stands on a lotus blossom, while the guardian fgures stand on rocky outcroppings.

The seated lion below each bodhisattva faces inward toward a crouching dwarf who holds above his

head an ofering to the Buddha. Four meditating Buddhas, each in his own square niche, appear below

the main fgural grouping. A small, tile-roof shrine rises above the main niche, its fnial resembling an

Indian stupa. Ribbons strung with bells futter from the top of the fnial, while an apsara hovers on either

side of the shrine. The text below the niche presents the Heart Sutra (心經), one of the most popular and

best-known Buddhist scriptures in China; as the lowest portion of the stele has been lost, the sutra is

now incomplete.

6 For information about the increased interest in Maitreya in the sixth century, see: J. Leroy Davidson, The Lotus Sutra in
Chinese Art: A Study in Buddhist Art to the Year 1000, (New Haven: Yale University Press), 1954.

7 See: Matsubara, Saburō, Chūgoku Bukkyō chōkoku shiron [A Compendium of Chinese Buddhist Sculptures], Zuhan hen 2,
Nambokuchō kōki - Zui [vol. 2, Plates: Later Six Dynasties and Sui], (Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan), 1995, p. 544.

8 See: Kristin A. Mortimer, Harvard University Art Museums: A Guide to the Collections, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Art Museums, and New York: Abbeville Press), 1985, p. 26, no. 20.

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