Victoria Vladimirovna Demenova

Candidate of Art Criticism, Lecturer at the Ural State University named after A.M. Gorky Russia, Yekaterinburg

To the Problem of the Modern Buddhist Art Research: Guarding and Development of Artistic Tradition

One of the most important positions, reflected in The Roerich Pact is the defense and the respect, which should be given to the cultural monuments and cultural institutions. Deep spiritual sources of the Pact, its guarding-scientific and civilized potential, allows us to say that today regulation of the protection of guarding and respect piercing the Pact, may be examined much wider and may be applied to the Culture not only concerning separate monuments and institutions of culture, but also it could be applied to the culture of artistic life, artistic tradition, to the respect of traditions as a part of Culture as a whole. For "the living texture of Culture" (N.K. Roerich) – preservation of tradition is always a difficult process, which suppose the simultaneous preservation of the nucleus and the development of its life forms.

Regarding the preservation of the religious art traditions this process was also enriched with the seethed interactions of the developing artistic process and settled canon. During the last decades the main directions of its study were marked by the researchers of Buddhist art. The description of the iconographical and iconometrical peculiarity of the compositions, study of the historical transformation of the images, the history of existence in fact of different things. Least of all the methods of stylistic analysis and the problem of revelation, description and interaction of artistic schools, were revealed. The problems of searching the language of the art criticism during the description and analysis of the composition, in counterbalance of the schematic lexical symbolistic approach, the problems of composition analysis in the context of iconographical canon still remain unrevealed.

Regarding the modern masters, the delineated circle of the problems, intensified by the degraded stylistic boundaries of composition and partly by the new, non-guild role, which master does in the relations system of society and sangha. With all desire to follow the definite artistic school, traditional rules of education, a modern Buddhist artist freely or not undergoes the various visual influences, as he has the possibility to see compositions of different epochs and styles. The Buddhist masters from Russia and ex-Soviet Union countries, where the continuity of national artistic schools was interrupted for many years, per se, turned out in the same position as western-european artists, which took the path of the Buddhism – the possibility to choose independently one or another line of the continuity of the traditional painting or sculpture or to search his own artistic style. They have the possibility not only to move freely around the world, but also to become real "citizens of the world": born in one country, artists learn the art of Buddhism or sculpture more often in India, and then they live and work in various parts of the world from Ulan-Ude to San Francisco, from Taipei to Elista. Quite often masters, taking the path of sacral art, often already possess the high level of classical, academic painting or sculptural school. In such situation stylistic features of the artistic tradition are threatened, as it is based on the individual beginning of the artist, its own experience of "the review" of compositions and understanding of the beauty. On the other hand, the sacral art to which today the Buddhist tradition of creation the picturesque thanka and sculpture is concerned, in separate countries put "on a stream", on bulk sale for "infatuated with East" western tourists. Even if all external rules of creation the picture were being maintained, often the main thing is gone – the embodiment of living, visualized image appeared through the deep meditation. This also can be examined as waylay danger of underminding the deep spiritual basis of hand down a tradition, when bringing up, rising (ascent of) of the artist had taken many years under the guidance of the guru, lama.

In the context of our speech let us touch upon the serious question, concerning the problem of preservation and respect towards the Buddhist artistic tradition from the standpoint of the researcher. This question is connected with the definition of the artistic phenomenon in compositions of sacral art, including modern one. If he must, if the researcher had the right to speak about the level of artistic implementation of one or another composition? If he had the right, than proceeding from what positions, within the limits of which categories, could this discourse occur regarding the compositions of modern Buddhist artists? In the Tsongkhapa’s original text, devoted to the artist’s moral, translated to Russian language by Ogneva E.G., is said that any painting, created by the canon is the great good and thereafter discussion about its aesthetically artistic qualities presented to be needless. Painter reveals the Buddha essence, "brings the merit", and the act of reproduction is the source of accumulation the favourable karma. Though with care and sympathy for the artists, the Tsongkhapa′s text and later comments warn strictly about karmic consequences of any mistakes (iconographical and iconometrical), accomplished with respect to paintings.

For the modern art criticism the question about the level of artistic embodiment of the religious images is quite difficult and become topical for researchers of different figurative traditions. For instance, V. Lepahin touches upon this question in the context of wonderworking icon phenomenon in ancient Russia: it often didn’t have aesthetic virtue, but it exude myrrh and cure. Simultaneously with this author gives an example of Andrei Rublev, whose icons were both wonderworking and perfect from the standpoint of picturesque embodiment. Researcher define wonderworking icon as phenomenon, mostly expressing in itself synergetic interaction of "God′s and Human′s". Let us add that for numerous researchers of art criticism Rublev′s works are still the source of inspiration. In Buddhist art the examples of coincidence of researcher’s opinion and tradition are numerous. Quite often, outstanding sculptural images or thankas, from the standpoint of researcher, belonged to the masters of "high regeneration". For instance, works of genius Mongolian master of XVII-XVIII century Zanabazar, who was recognized as regeneration of Jebtsundamba Khutuktu, in XX century, were glorified by the researcher Cultem. The phenomenon of Mongolian artist of the early XX century, Baldugiin Sharav, was evaluated by the researchers and they marked the influence of art nouveau in his works. And his contemporary, one of the Khutuktus, while appreciating Sharav′s paintings, from the standpoint of spiritual vision, "the purity of vessel" of the master, already during his lifetime he expressed the praise bravely to the artist, recessive from the artistic tradition: "He has no need in schools, he sees divine being vividly".

Thus, modern Buddhist compositions, including those which full of technological innovations, raise not only the number of issues connected with the possibility to preserve the authenticity of picturesque and sculptural tradition in nowadays, but also vividly demonstrate measure of responsibility and respect, which should show researcher, while analyzing the developing nature by lively, pulsating, changing in modern world, artistic tradition.



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•  The Roerich Pact and the Banner of Peace as a Remarkable Phenomenon of the World Culture
Reports and Speeches at the International Social and Scientific Conference.
Delhi – Kullu – Shimla – Kalimpong October 22– November 5 2010


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