Greek gods and Indian concepts of the universe’s vastness–I’ve gotten into humongous things in the last few posts. I need a break. Yeah, Wat Pho’s Buddha’s footprints are big too, but–
a closer look reveals some of the most elegant art anyone on the planet ever created. Thailand is a different culture than India, and it turned ideas from India into its own way of processing reality. Thai culture usually avoids monumental things and focuses on the human scale. But I find its creations as magnificent as anything the West, or India, or China ever made.
Standard images in Wat Pho’s Buddha’s footprint are the 108 auspicious signs, the wheel of Dharma (you can see it in the center) and Mt. Meru with a palace on top (in the heel). But look how Thais used mother of pearl inlay to make all this symbolism both shimmering and dainty.
Many divinities surround the wheel of Dharma. The ones above are frontal and stately, like meditating Buddha’s.
But these are more animated. Like a lot of Thai art, heaven is both stately and fun.
And it gets even more fun. These half bird-half human figures are called kinnari. They’re celestial musicians and lovers, and among the 108 auspicious signs.
These images translate the huge Indian cosmos into the most elegant lines and soft shimmers imaginable.
The animal kingdom is much more elegant in the Buddha’s footprint at Bangkok’s Wat Pho–no coke cans in sight here. Beasts are as luminous as the celestial beings. That’s the great thing about Thai art–it makes everything enchanting. The more you explore it, the more wondrous it becomes.
Thai art isn’t based on the 3 dimensional perspective that developed in the West. It’s not as analytical. Instead, it allows everything to be divinely beautiful.
This applies to real critters, and
Imaginary ones.
It also applies to the natural environment.
In Wat Pho’s Buddha’s footprint, stones glitter as though they’re alive.
And vegetation shines so much that it seems as permanent as the stones.
And the stones of Mt Meru are as radiant as the palace they support. Mt Meru in Indian mythology is as almost as vast as the whole universe. But Thais made it pretty and elegant.
Even mundane scenes, like the ones above, radiate grace.
So Thai art makes everything it touches enchanting, from the vastest panoramas Indian imaginations could whip up to the most ordinary settings.