Asia Society, take two
I went to the Asia society today to see the other exhibit they have that I hadn’t had a chance to see the first time that I went there. The other exhibit they had was the art of Kashmir. The interesting part about it was that Kashmir is a place that had both communities of Hindus and Budhists, so the resulting art from that area was often a mixture of both of these religions. There were many sculptures made of copper and iron that represented different gods and were used ritualistically. Later in history, there was a strong Muslim population there as well that produced art - what was particularly striking to me about the Muslim art that was displayed was that as far as I know Muslims traditionally do not draw faces in their art as part of a religious prohibition and tend to focus on geometric shapes, however majority of the Muslim art that was on display were paintings or drawings with faces - perhaps this was a result of the mixture of cultures and religions in that one geographical area of the world so perhaps the traditions became somewhat different. It was also very interesting to see the stark difference in the Hindu/Budhist art to the Muslim art. The exhibit went from showing dark, metal 3-d shapes to flat, colorful drawings and paintings (and Arabic caligraphy). After that there was a whole display of actual religious articles such as robes and prayer mats which were beautifully made with intricate patterns and what I would imagine is expensive material. I started to consider how easily religion really does lend itself to art. With rituals that require certain instruments or clothing, the framework for art is already there for people to begin to design and craft these precious articles to be as beautiful as they can be. I think religious art is a very special form of art because it represents something that really defines the life of the artist - if the artist wasn’t interested in religion or if it wasn’t important to him/her, then (s)he wouldn’t have bothered with it. But the idea of taking something sacred and making it beautiful out of love for everything that it means to you and the higher purpose that it serves is a really beautiful thing. I don’t think we see that much art today revolving around religion, b/c to many it is not important, or perhaps it isn’t cutting-edge enough, and we live in a secularized culture in which religion doesn’t always seem to have a place or to be taken seriously hence most of the significant religious art comes from the past, but I think religious themes in art should stay alive and not fade out.