Robert Linrothe: "Hanging Together: Paintings and Sculptures of Wrathful Deities in Tibetan Buddhist Art"

Date
Saturday May 17th 2008, 1:00PM
Event Sponsor
Co-sponsored by Stanford Continuing Studes
Location
Cummings Art Building, Room 4
Book cover of Rob Linroth book with an image of a wrathful deity

Abstract:

Collectively, wrathful deities are conspicuous in the pantheon of Tibetan Buddhism, and many examples are featured in the collections of the Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University. Using documentation of extant shrines devoted to such deities in Tibet, this Saturday seminar will explore some of the functions of wrathful deities within individual and collective ritual practice. We will meet for a lecture and discussion of these fascinating artifacts, and then go together to the galleries of the Cantor Arts Center to experience them directly. The seminar will help participants understand the religious and artistic contexts of these ritual objects, discussing why they were made, how they were used, and how they were arranged into sets or suites of deities.

Bio:

Rob Linrothe is the Associate Professor and Director of Art History, Skidmore College. He is a specialist in the Buddhist art of the Himalayas. He received a PhD in art history from the University of Chicago and through his fieldwork has concentrated on the premodern mural painting of Ladakh and Zangskar (Northwest India) and the contemporary revival of monastic painting in Amdo (China, eastern cultural Tibet). Among his publications is the book Ruthless Compassion: Wrathful Deities in Early Indo-Tibetan Esoteric Buddhist Art.