The Face of a Buddha

TO SAY THAT the work of any artist falls along a spectrum of classicism and maximalism is one thing, but to grasp intuitively the artistry of someone who worked in an unimaginably distant time and place using our familiar knowledge of pressures and constraints is something else. This article examines two very different visual artists who, in centuries past, each carved the figure of a buddha. We shall learn how several external constraints encouraged both of the sculptors to contribute to a rich and enduring classical style.

A picture’s worth a thousand words, or so the saying goes, and while Buddhism has generated endless pages of written philosophy, commentary, and debate, one of its most influential “ideas” remains the image of the seated buddha himself. SIDDHARTHA GAUTAMA was a man who lived in India from approximately 485 to 405 BCE and is remembered today by millions of people around the world as the first buddha (“enlightened one”). Siddhartha was a historical figure, not a god, and the many statues of him commemorate his wise teachings and remind viewers of his life and work. His great insight, his enlightenment, came by understanding that a satisfactory life arises from AWARENESS of how the world really works, not how we believe it must work. “The image of the Buddha seated cross-legged in meditation,” observes Damien Keown in Buddhism, “is one of the most popular themes in Buddhist art, and a constant reminder of the close association between meditation and enlightenment.”

Buddha statue from Mathura region, Uttar Pradesh, India. 2nd century. (Sarnath Site Museum)

ONE OF THE EARLIEST known statues of the Buddha comes from the Mathura region of Uttar Pradesh, India, and was carved in the second century CE. According to its inscription, the statue at right was commissioned by a nun named Amoha-asi to promote “the welfare and happiness of all sentient beings,” and at once we have encountered evidence of the artist’s constraint of function: beyond beauty alone, his work was to honor moral and spiritual ideals via the image of the buddha. To put it plainly, the sculptor’s paycheck depended largely on his ability to fulfill this function, thereby reducing the maximalist temptation to adopt a gaudy or overblown style.

But the sculptor whom Amoha-asi commissioned would have faced a big question: What did Siddhartha look like? The absence of paintings—let alone photographs—from the Buddha’s lifetime has prevented us from knowing much about his appearance. Yet in the past two thousand years, when creating images of the Buddha, artists have come to employ a standard set of symbolic postures and physical characteristics. These inform viewers that the figure is indeed the Buddha, and often signify important chapters in his life. Logic tells us that nearly all of these sculptors, including the one whose work is pictured above, would have been familiar with earlier statues of the Buddha, similarly portrayed. Here, as often seems the case, we have identified a constraint of subject that is closely related to one of function.

Firstly, we may observe that the Buddha wears a peaceful expression and has folded his healthy physique into “a meditative posture,” as Denise Patry Leidy explains in The Art of Buddhism. She next draws our attention to “his left hand on his left knee and his right hand held up with the palm open. This gesture suggests that he is interacting with, possibly teaching or reassuring, the potential viewer.” In fact, the gesture comes from a collection of hand positions called mudras, each of which holds a particular meaning and is often (as mentioned above) associated with a major event in Siddhartha’s life.

Among the most prominent of the Buddha’s physical features are his elongated earlobes, a symbolic reminder of the weighty jewelry which Siddhartha had worn prior to his enlightenment. Secondly, the lump atop the Buddha’s head is not (entirely) hair but instead a cranial protuberance called the ushnisha, representing the increased mental capacity of an enlightened person. Of similar significance is the small dot on the Buddha’s brow, a “third eye” to remind viewers of his enhanced powers of perception.

Finally, this anonymous Indian sculptor may have found constraint in his tools and materials. Consider the craftsmanship required to chisel the look of skin, clothing, hair, leaves, and more from just one material: a slab of sandstone 27 inches high.

The Amida Buddha by Jocho, 1053. Byodo-in Temple, Uji, Japan. (Wikimedia Commons)

NINE HUNDRED YEARS later, and more than three thousand miles away, another artist would put his hand to the carving of a buddha. Commissioned by the powerful Fugiwara family of Japan, the master sculptor JOCHO (d. 1057) produced the statue at right in 1053 to occupy a seat of honor in the Phoenix Hall at the newly-built Byodo-in Temple, located in the Japanese countryside to the south of Kyoto.

As Buddhist philosophy has continued to grow more diverse, so too has its art. Indeed, this second sculpture represents not Siddhartha but another enlightened being known as the Amida Buddha—the central figure in a rather unusual sect of Buddhism honoring a mystical place called the Pure Land. Nonetheless, a comparison of the two carvings will reveal many common elements of style.

This buddha too wears a humble cloth garment, similarly draped over his left shoulder, and he sits in a relaxed pose. In fact, his hands form a mudra that indicates a state of meditation.

Looking closer still, we can observe that Jocho employed the very same symbolic “code” as the Indian sculptor, to emphasize via physical features that this buddha (like Siddhartha) had attained enlightenment: elongated earlobes, an expanded cranium, and a small, round bump on the forehead. Constraints of function and subject thus seem very much in force.

Art historians are quick to praise the way in which Jocho, despite those constraints, brought his own masterful style to the project. In her book Japanese Art, Joan Stanley-Baker calls the sculpture “Jocho’s masterpiece, with proportions of the perfect human ideal: the rounded head, poised on a graceful neck, is balanced by gently sloping shoulders and softly articulated knees.”

Exterior of the Phoenix Hall at Byodo-in Temple in Uji, Japan. (Wikimedia Commons)

The fact that we know his name is perhaps one indication that Jocho, in an age of frequent anonymity, reached great heights in the refinement of his style. He was “the most celebrated sculptor of his age,” writes Paul Varley in Japanese Culture, “and one of the first persons in Japanese history to receive distinction and honor from the court as an artist of individuality and not merely as a craftsman.”

That said, it may surprise you to learn that Jocho’s “individuality” of style seems to have come about with direct regard to his craftsmanship: To carve from cypress wood (covered in gold leaf) a statue that towers more than 9 feet in height required significant creative innovation. “Single-block sculptures of great size had been found to split, warp and crack, even if the core had been hollowed,” explains Stanley-Baker. “Jocho and his craftsmen prevented this by revolutionary yosegi and warihagi techniques where the main block was cut into front and back halves, hollowed and rejoined for carving. Additional pieces were added to the sides, back and front where necessary.”

Leidy reports that Jocho incorporated no less than fifty-three pieces of wood into the statue, and describes the stylistic implications of his innovative technique:

The use of many blocks of wood allows for the manipulation of proportions, such as the buddha’s long legs which was not possible in the single woodblock technique. The length of the legs, the broad and simple features of the face and chest, and the soft folds of the drapery give the statue a calm stability typical of the period and were made possible by the multiple blocks.

Therefore, like the countless sculptors of buddha statues before and since, Jocho created an original masterpiece whose style was strengthened—not muffled—by external constraints of subject, of function, and of materials.

THIS SHORT LOOK at the artistry of two sculptors of Buddhist iconography has acquainted us with a sublime classical style that clearly stands the test of time. What’s more, our encounter with Buddhism may yet provide a glimmer of hope for the artist who has become mired in a maximalist artistry: While classicism and maximalism traditionally reflect the presence or absence of unsought external constraints, do those few artists who deliberately seek them out possess the same enlightened AWARENESS of their situation that the Buddha recognized twenty-four centuries ago?