Page 32 - 2021 March 17th Japanese and Korean Art, Bonhams NYC New York

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AN IMPORTANT LACQUERED WOOD FIGURE OF AMIDA NYORAI In sculpture, the deity’s serene and otherworldly yet compassionate and
Heian Period (792-1185), 12th century accessible persona inspired a series of master sculptors of whom the best-
A standing figure of Amida Nyorai (Sanskrit: Amitabha Tathagata) in classic known is Jocho (died 1057). The cult of Amida perhaps found its most
late-Heian pose, carved chiefly from a single hollowed block of hinoki extravagant expression in the Phoenix Hall of the Byodoin Temple at Uji, not
(cypress) wood, the extremities carved from separate pieces of wood, with far southeast of Kyoto, where the entire building is a vast recreation of the
traces and lacquer and gilding, wearing a fukuken’e (mantle) and kun (skirt), Western Paradise, with a seated figure of Amida by Jocho as its focal point.
the shallow-carved fukuken’e descending from the shoulders and forming
a series of regular curves over the abdomen, the kun with typical Y-shaped The Byodoin Amida is about eight feet (2.4 meters) high, but sculptures
and vertical central pleats, the hands in the raigo-in (vitarka mudra) gesture at the three shaku (approx. three feet or one meter) scale seen here, were
used by Amida when descending from heaven to receive the souls of the installed in numerous temples in the capital region and beyond, while still
deceased, the right hand raised and the left hand lowered, both with palm smaller figures were commissioned by the aristocracy for their private
facing outward, standing on a lotus pedestal devotions. For later Heian instances of this well-known iconography and
35 1/2in (90.2cm) high (figure only), 42 7/8in (109cm) high overall approximately the same size, compare standing figures in Kyushu National
Museum (12th century, 96.8cm), https://emuseum.nich.go.jp/detail?langId
$100,000 - 150,000 =zh&webView=&content_base_id=100015&content_part_id=0&content_
pict_id=0 and Hyogo Prefectural Museum of History, (dateable to 1170,
During the tenth century, the cult of the Buddha Amida Nyorai, Lord of the 96.2cm), https://www.hyogo-c.ed.jp/~rekihaku-bo/historystation/exhibit-
Western Paradise, began to assume a central position in the religious life meihin/meihin09.html.
of Japan: Amida, no longer depicted as part of a vast celestial hierarchy,
achieved iconographic preeminence and was typically shown with only Mass-spectrometer radiocarbon analysis of a microsample from this lot,
a pair or a small group of attendant deities. A single prayer, Namu Amida carried out by Dr. Armel Bouvier for CIRAM Corporation (Report # 1217-OA-
Butsu (Hail to Amitabha Buddha), if uttered with total sincerity, became the 85N, February 6, 2017), indicated that the timber was most likely cut
sole requirement for salvation, a simple credo that appealed to courtier and between the end of the tenth and the middle of the twelfth century, when
peasant alike. Gorgeously colored and gilded paintings of the raigo, Amida’s the cult of Amida was at its zenith.
descent from the heavens to greet the soul of the dying believer, were
commissioned in large numbers by aristocratic patrons.
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