The Los Angeles County Museum of Art's collection of Southeast Asian Art includes art from Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam. Bronze and Iron Age objects from the Dongson culture of Indonesia and Vietnam and the Ban Chiang culture of Thailand are on view along with Buddhist and Hindu sculpture from all periods and regions. The collection of Sri Lankan art is one of the largest and most comprehensive outside Asia. Art of the Himalayan countries of Nepal, Tibet, and Bhutan is also well represented. The collection includes many illustrated manuscript pages and sculptures in various media ranging in time from the eleventh through the twentieth century. The collection is especially notable for its early Tibetan and Nepalese thanka paintings. The museum’s collection South Asian sculpture is one of the most encyclopedic outside of South Asia. The earliest material on exhibit is from the Harappan civilization of the Indus River Valley, which flourished approximately five thousand years ago. The display of Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain sculptures in a variety of media documents the entire spectrum of the stylistic and iconographic development of the art of these religions throughout South Asia. South Asian paintings in the collection include eleventh-century Pala dynasty manuscripts, sixteenth to nineteenth-century Mughal dynasty paintings, and modern South Asian graphic arts. The decorative art collection includes early writing cabinets, Christian ivory carvings from Goa, fine metalware, jewelry and enamel work, and many important Mughal jades and glassware. Two outstanding works are an exquisite Mughal brass ewer and the personal dagger of the seventeenth-century Mughal emperor Aurangzeb. In addition, the department has received two notable collections of Southeast Asian ceramics. Not only do they demonstrate the remarkable creative achievements of Thai, Vietnamese, and Cambodian potters; these gifts also illustrate the extent of artistic exchange in East Asia. Purchase catalogue: Los Angeles County Museum of Art: Handbook of the Collections

Highlights from South and Southeast
Asian Art

Browse the South and Southeast Asian Art Collections online

Tales of Krishna

Gupta rule in northern India initiated a long era (320–600) of peace, prosperity, and artistic accomplishment. From the two main artistic centers of the period, Mathura and Sarnath, issued the sculpture now regarded as forming the classical Indian style. This image of the historical Buddha Sakyamuni, with its serene countenance, embodies the Gupta balance of elegant form and inner spirituality.

Although the Gupta rulers were Hindu, they actively patronized Buddhism. Kings and devotees gained spiritual merit by pious acts: building temples, commissioning or making images of Buddha, such as this one, or worshiping them. This Buddha embodies two ideals basic to Buddhism, the perfect yogi and the universal ruler. He possesses the yogi's supple, almost buoyant body and contemplative gaze and facial expression, and the ruler’s youth, strong shoulders, firm body, and webbed hands and feet. Time-honored traditions of portrayal connect the Buddha’s human form with nature; his long eyes are shaped like fish, his curls like snail shells, and the profile of his left shoulder and arm is like the trunk of an elephant.

This sculpture was probably made in northern India and was influenced by Mathura and Sarnath styles. The image, long preserved in a Tibetan monastery, received there the dark indigo paint on its locks. The striated, schematic folds of the robe were common to Mathura figures, while its transparency as well as the delicate proportions of face and body and the slight weight shift to the right leg are reminiscent of Sarnath sculpture.

Of the three gods of the Hindu trinity—Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the Preserver, and Siva the Destroyer and Restorer—Siva was especially popular and widely worshiped in southern India. This figure has an opening in its base that allowed it to be borne in religious processions, typically ornamented and draped.

In India the art of dance is not only regarded as a form of yoga but is associated with the very act of creation. As lord of yoga, Siva is also the source of the cosmic dance that created the universe in endless rhythmic cycles. The Tamil sculptors of the Chola dynasty (mid-ninth to early fourteenth centuries) realized Siva the Dancer in his most complete and graphic form (Nataraja), one which has become symbolic of Indian civilization.

Siva dances in an aureole of flame that rises from a lotus pedestal, symbol of primordial being and creation. The arched aureole and its three-tongued flames represent the universe and its ultimate destruction by fire. In his upper right hand Siva holds the drum representing the primordial sound at the creation of the universe; the second right hand makes a gesture of reassurance. His upper left hand holds the flame of destruction. The lower one points to his left foot, refuge of the soul, and shows the path of salvation through Siva's trampling of the demon that personifies ignorance.

Siva's body seems to rise and expand with his aureole. The force of his broad shoulders and proud countenance are echoed by the rhythmic explosion of his locks; among them the small figure of Ganges (left) represents the god's intimate connections with water, the force of life. Perfectly poised, this work manifests Siva's divine unity with compelling grace and majesty.

Sarasvati, the Jain goddess of knowledge, learning, and music, is identified in the inscription on the base of this work. It states that the nobleman Parasuruma commissioned the piece in 1156 from the master builder Jagadeva to replace one dedicated in a temple in 1069 and damaged in 1153. Such information is very rare since for most Indian sculptures the identify of the artist is not known and the works are undated.

The elegant, smooth surfaces and richly carved details of this white marble figure bespeak the great prosperity of the Solanki dynasty (765–1197), when the ports of the state of Gujarat were major clearinghouses for trade between East and West. Sarasvati originally had the traditional four arms and in addition to her rosary may have held a book in one now-missing hand. The swan, her customary companion, is here a gander (lower right); facing pairs of geese also appear in the chakras, wheel-like insignias, she holds. Two small deities bearing garlands fly above them, and at either side of her hips are two more deities, one playing the vina, an ancient instrument, the other playing a flute. Below, two attendants wield fly whisks, indicating the goddess's high rank; the donor of the sculpture sits in reverence at her right foot.

In the first through fifth centuries both the Buddhist and Hindu religions spread and flourished throughout the enormous geographical area of Southeast Asia, creating a need for icons to worship. Artists in Thailand, Sri Lanka, Burma Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, and Vietnam used Indian models for their sacred and profane images. Although this common artistic heritage and the adoption of Sanskrit as a court language helped lend unity to these diverse cultures, their religious images evolved into different expressions.
Some of the finest Buddhist images were produced in Thailand in the seventh and eighth centuries, in the era of the Dvaravati kingdom (sixth to eleventh centuries), a culture defined largely by its uniform art style, since it is otherwise known only from a few Chinese references and inscriptions on three surviving Thai medals. At that time the Theravada form of Buddhism prevailed, an essentially monotheistic and monastic religion whose worship focused on the historical Buddha.

This standing bronze Thai Buddha is a classical example of Dvaravati sculpture. It has a characteristically slim, elegant body and swelling limbs and a frontal and symmetrical stance with hands raised in a double gesture of explanation. The serene face has distinctive Mon features. The treatment of the body and transparent garment reveals the influence of Gupta images from Sarnath and perhaps Ajanta, but the symmetry and frontality, not found in these Indian prototypes, are Thai traits.

The goddess Durga is an aspect of the magna mater, the great mother or goddess of Near Eastern cultures, and goes back to paleolithic times. Associated with fecundity and abundance, this goddess entered India with the Indo-Greeks, becoming a cult figure and the subject of many small stone icons in the Kushan period (first–third centuries). By the Gupta era (320-600) Durga was a supreme goddess to her devotees. She embodies sakti, the creative or cosmic energy underlying all of creation.

According to legend, Durga was created by the male gods of the Hindu pantheon, who formed her from the sum of their combined energies for the purpose of defending their tranquility, which was being threatened by the armies of the demon Mahisa. When confronted, Mahisa transformed himself into a buffalo, but Durga was not deceived; she kicked him to his knees, pierced him with her trident, and struck off his head as he tried to resume human form.

Here Mahisa encounters Durga with eight arms and numerous powerful weapons the gods gave her: a conch shell, bow, snake noose, axe, club, and mace. Although Indian representations of this battle are graphic, Javanese depictions are much less lurid. This sculpture lacks Durga's fierce companion and vehicle, the lion, and the buffalo is not mutilated, perhaps in acknowledgment of its essential role in Javanese culture, where it was indispensable in the cultivation of rice. The animal lies almost placidly under Durga's feet. Durga stands serene and graceful in her triumph as the cherubic demon emerges, gesturing with an upraised hand to ward off her wrath.

The Burmese temple city of Pagan underwent a spectacular flowering during the eleventh to thirteenth centuries. To embellish the city's numerous brick temples, Buddhist images were created in paint, metal, stone, and wood. Only a small group of figures from Pagan relating to this crowned Buddha survives.

The figure is remarkable for its good condition. Originally lacquered and gilded, its surface still carries traces of lacquer, which no doubt helped preserve it from rot and termites. Its halo of vegetal motifs is almost intact. Only a lower portion of the robe and the lotus pedestal are missing.

The thin, almost abstract rendering of Buddha's body is emphasized by attenuated arms and hands. The lowered hand makes an iconic gesture indicating the granting of a wish, while the raised hand holds the end of his robe or perhaps a sacred text. In marked contrast to the unornamented body, the Buddha's jeweled collar, earrings, crown, tall coiffure, and foliate halo give the image a surprising weight and particularity.

Images of the historical Sakyamuni usually depict a simple mendicant clad in a monk's robe, but this figure's elaborate ornamentation may indicate that it is an idealized portrait of deceased royalty. The kings of Pagan left inscriptions that reveal their expectations of rebirth as Buddhas in the Buddhist heavens; hence this carving may represent a royal ancestor crowned and bejeweled as he was on earth. The apparent interest in individualizing facial features of the group of carved Pagan Buddhas may support this interpretation.

One of the earliest of its type known from Nepal, this jeweled representation of the god Siva and his consort Uma depicts them as one being, Ardhanarisvara, the Lord Whose Half Is Woman. The concept of the androgynous image uniting Siva and Uma was devised by theologians to emphasize the nonduality of the divine principle uniting masculinity and femininity. The fact that such images were conceived in a male-dominated civilization reveals the great importance of the feminine principle in Hindu religious thought.

The gods of the Hindu pantheon are considered to be timeless and unaging beings. They are often represented with a lithe, feminine grace, which permitted the artist to join this figure's distinctly male and female halves with minimal disorientation. Uma has a wide hip and prominent breast; Siva is more angular, his waist less sharply curved. His knee-length roman dips gracefully downward to become Uma's ankle-length garment. His matted locks are piled high in contrast to Uma's elegant coiffure.
Balancing these carefully delineated distinctions, the three surviving arms have similar slender, rounded shapes. A strong vertical ellipse, described by the shoulders, lowered arm, and the sash slung across the lower legs, unites the composition. A second ellipse, suggested by the two raised arms, with its apex at the brow, overlaps and encompasses the first. These circumferences reveal themselves slowly, encouraging an unhurried meditation on the smooth, curved forms and reinforcing the sense of cosmic unity the image is intended to convey. Its sense of calm and balance shows the influence of Indian Gupta art.

In twelfth-century Tibet a flourishing Buddhist religious life was dominated by theistic and faith-centered Tantric observance. It focused on salvation through codified recital of mantras, ritual dances and gestures, and special meditation. Strict codes also determined color, size, proportion, and formal details of the painted and sculpted images employed at temples and shrines to aid worship.

This thanka (religious painting), one of the oldest and largest preserved outside Tibet, bears an inscription acknowledging its unusual size and stating that it was made for the lama Chokyi Gyaltsen (1112–89) for the life-attainment ceremony honoring the fulfillment of his monk's vows.

The canonically prescribed colors of some of the painting's figures may have changed or been altered over time. The large central tathagata (manifestation of Buddha) sits on a lotus throne and holds a flower-filled vase. Through his attributes, gestures, and link with the lama's ceremony, scholars identify him as Amitayus, tathagata of endless life, although a green complexion usually indicates a Buddha of healing. He is flanked by two bodhisattvas (enlightened saintly beings), who stand swaying on smaller lotuses. The white one is Avalokitesvara, patron of Tibet, and the brown one, if originally red or golden, would be Maitreya, the future Buddha. Four bodhisattvas and an apotheosized monk appear on each side of the tathagata's head. Beneath his throne are three placid bodhisattvas: Avalokitesvara, Manjusri, and Vajrapani; they are flanked by two fierce protectors: Hayagriva and Acala. The work is a visualization as well as a mystical evocation of deities and saints.

This scene depicts an episode from an epic whose hero is Hamza, warrior and uncle of the prophet Muhammad. One of a set of 1,400 paintings on cloth, this unusually large illustration was held up to view while the text relating the tale was recited aloud.

The Hanzanama was a favorite with Akbar (1542–1605), third Mughal emperor of India and an influential patron of the arts. The twelve volumes of the series were executed in his imperial atelier under the supervision of two Persian painters: Mir Sayyid Ali and Khwaja Abd as-Samad. These artists helped create the Mughal style, a new school of painting incorporating Turkish, Persian, and other painting traditions. Only about 140 works from Akbar's Hamzanama are known to survive.

The painting exhibits Indian style in its attention to the women's postures and the folds of their clothing as well as to the intricate, naturalistic foliage of the tree trunks. The substantial architectural setting is also an Indian preoccupation, although its elements, the portico and pavilion, are Persian, as are the intricately patterned surfaces of wall, floor tiles, and roofs, the three-quarter profiles, and shading. Standard pictorial elements identify warriors, retainers, and attendants. Absence of linear perspective makes a lively contrast with the more naturalistically rendered figures and the foreshortened red carpet. The vertical tilt of courtyard and pavilion conveys the tumultuous entry of the heroes in the foreground, reaffirming the narrative action.

The Rajputs, believed to have descended from Scythian invaders of northwest India, formed the source of greatest resistance to the Muslim Mughal conquerors of northern India in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The legendary military valor of the Hindu maharajas (great kings) of the Rajput states was overcome only in 1615, when Amar Singh I of Mewar (r.1597–1620) accepted nominal Mughal suzerainty. The state of Mewar maintained uneasy relations with the Mughals, but conditions improved during the 1620s. Its Rajput ruler Jagat Singh I(r. 1628–54) received gifts and titles from the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan (r. 1628–58), builder of the Taj Mahal.

Traditional Rajput painting consisted mainly of illustrations of poetic themes and religious epics, especially those concerning Krishna, but eventually was influenced by the Mughals’ intense preoccupation with historical events and realistic imagery. Rajput painters developed an individualistic portraiture but retained a preference for stereotyped images.

In this posthumous portrait Jagat Singh's pose, with face and legs in profile, shoulders somewhat foreshortened, and fleshy chin, small mouth, and slightly hooked nose are Mughal traits. His smooth expressionless face, as timeless as an icon, and his dark almond-shaped eye are, by contrast, invariable traits of Rajput painting. The precisely poised rose symbolizes the ruler's urbanity, but his great sword, forming an arresting axis, is a reminder that Jagat Singh is also heir to the valiant warrior spirit of his forefathers.

From the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries Thai ceramics enjoyed brisk production and wide dispersal throughout Southeast Asia. The friendly interaction of the emerging Thai state with China and other Southeast Asian states assured an exchange of goods and technology and aided their success. Trade contact with the hard-bodied, glazed, nonporous ware of China and Vietnam spurred development of indigenous Thai earthenware and stoneware.

Examples of Thai ceramics have survived in burial sites of the Southeast Asian archipelago and in waste heaps of Thai kiln sites and are preserved among temple and heirloom treasures. Recent archaeological discoveries reveal that both Sukhothai and Sawankhalok ware were prominent in the ceramic trade during the fifteenth century. According to textual sources, the kilns at Sawankhalok eventually superseded those at Sukhothai and prospered until the sixteenth century.

Sukhothai potters produced bowls, heavy jars, and roof tiles in a coarse-bodied glazed ware with underpainted dark brown designs. Sawankhalok potters, with a better-quality clay, made a variety of small delicate vessels, antic figurines, containers, and architectural ornaments. Bisque and glazed, Sawankhalok ware had underglaze iron-black decoration and a glaze of brown, pearly white monochrome, or green celadon.

This unusually large, fruit-shaped covered bowl is a characteristic Thai form. The bowl is decorated with iron-black scrolls over gray slip. its clear glaze, tinged blue where it pools, is typical of Sawankhalok ware.

Purchase catalogue:
Masterpieces from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art