Portal Guardian
Former TitleDvarapala (Guardian Figure)
CultureChinese
Dateca. 750 C.E.
MediumCoarse sandstone (head is a replica, cast from the original in the Fogg Art Museum)
DimensionsOverall: 51 1/2 × 20 × 7 1/2 inches (130.81 × 50.8 × 19.05 cm)
Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust
Object number32-141/2
On View
On viewGallery Location
- 204
Collections
DescriptionBuff-gray sandstone sculpture of a man, torso turned to the right, the eft arm thrust to the rear, held straight and taut; the muscles of the chest and stomach are strongly exaggerated. The right arm, lower part of the legs, and the left hand are broken off. There are traces of red pigment. The head is a replica, with a fierce expression, a sharply downturned, closed mouth and angled eyebrows.Gallery LabelGuardians often appear at the entrance to cave chapels. Because such a guardian is a lower order of deity, the craftsman is free to particularize the expressive content, in this case wrath and ferocity toward evils to be overcome, which stem from the passions and the senses. The exaggerated muscles, taut and powerful, still retain an underlying geometric arrangement but are, nonetheless, descriptively satisfying.
Cave Seventeen, Tianlongshan, Shanxi Province, China
Dr. Otto Burchard (1892 – 1965)
Purchased from Dr. Otto Burchard by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1932.
Tajiro Tonomura, and Tadashi Sekino, Tenryusan sekjutsu (Tokyo: Kanao, 1922), fig. 67 (repro.).
Art News, 32:57, Dec. 9, 1933, ill (repro.).
Harry Vanderstappen and Marhylin Rhie, “The Sculpture of T’ien Lung Shan: Reconstruction & Dating” Artibus Asiae, vol. 27, no. 3 (1965): 189-220, fig. 52 (repro.).
Li Yuqun and Li Gong. Tianlongshan shiku (Beijing: Kexue chubanshe, 2003), fig. 66, 144 (repro.).
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