Footnotes

江孜 西藏 十五世紀初 綠度母唐卡

This painting is replete with deities and practices that promote longevity, protection, and success for the practitioner. At the painting's center, the bodhisattva Green Tara has the miraculous power to deliver her devotees from all forms of danger. 'All forms' are codified into eight prevalent forms of danger (disease, invasion, banditry, wild animals, etc.), which Green Tara can be seen saving tiny devotees from in the register immediately below her throne. As her intervention naturally promotes a longer life, so the eight diminutive Taras are split into two by a central figure of Amitayus, the Buddha of Longevity. Down the sides of the painting are the Buddhas of the Ten Directions and the Eight Medicine Buddhas whose presence emphasizes the auspicious buddha-presence throughout the expansive Mahayana universe. The painting's original donor is seated before an altar at the bottom center of the painting, flanked by other bodhisattvas and deities, such as Vajrapani, Jambhala, and Vasudhara, who in their assemblage grant a holistic array of boons and protection.

The auspicious composition is rendered with stylistic features found in murals in the town of Gyantse, Shigatse Province, painted between c.1370-c.1450. These murals were created in a period known as the Golden Age of Gyantse, in which the town became the political and cultural center of the Sakya school of Tibetan Buddhism. Distinctive elements of the Gyantse style include the shape, heavy black outline, and placement of the two green clouds over an indigo background, as well as Tara's dressy silks (also outlined in black), her crown type, and the petals of her lotus pedestal. A Gyantse mural of Green Tara with these characteristics is painted on the second floor of the Gyantse Kumbum, the town's crowning monument, painted 1427-36 (Laird, Murals of Tibet, TASCHEN, 2018, pp.325-31). However, in contrast to the Kumbum's mural, representing the Gyantse style in its maturity, the present painting has no landscape elements (other than the two green clouds), nor does it frame its subsidiary figures within floating roundels. Instead, the painting follows the more geometric format of earlier Sakya painting from the 13th and 14th centuries (cf. Jackson, The Nepalese Legacy in Tibetan Painting, New York, 2010, pp.67-79). This mix of consistent and earlier features compared with the mature Gyantse style indicate an earlier attribution to around the turn of the 15th century.

Provenance:
Carlo Cristi, 2010
Private Australian Collection