Aesthetic Manifestations Of Buddhist Devotion Practice

AY2017/2018 Semester 2

This course builds on and develops knowledge and theoretical skills acquired from Histories of Art II and III. It allows students acquainted with Buddhist art to deepen and widen their knowledge on the topic and to acquire critical frameworks for rethinking prevailing canons of Buddhist art. It covers a selection of artefacts, sites and works of art from over two millennia from ca 300BCE to the 21st century. The geographical scope echoes the internationalisation of Buddhism, from South Asia to the Far East and Southeast Asia since the first millennium, followed by the Western world since the last half-century. The exploration of Buddhist artefacts and sites from the premodern to the contemporary is concurrent with the critical study of modern theoretical frameworks imposed on these aesthetic manifestations of Buddhist devotion and practice. Strategies to circumvent their inadequacies will be proposed and tested. This course is an advanced-level critical study of Buddhist art on: 1. Buddhist painting, sculpture, architecture, installation, performance art and new media art from 300BCE to the 21st century; 2. Modern theoretical tools and frameworks of Buddhist art history; 3. Ancient textual sources for the reconfiguration of ?Buddhist art?; and 4. Strategies to circumvent the inadequacies of a colonial ?Buddhist art?