Japanese Buddhist Art: Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and the Path to Enlightenment
Japanese Buddhism arrived from Korea in the 6th century CE and transformed the artistic landscape of the Japanese archipelago with a completeness and speed that has few parallels in cultural history. Within two centuries of Buddhism's introduction, Japan had produced some of the most extraordinary Buddhist sculpture in the world — the dry lacquer figures of the Nara period (710-794 CE), the bronze Great Buddha of Todai-ji, the wooden Kannon of Horyuji, the Asura of Kofukuji — works that combined Chinese Tang-dynasty technical mastery with a distinctive Japanese refinement of feeling that has characterized Japanese aesthetic production ever since. The Japanese Buddhist visual tradition is distinguished by its capacity to express the full emotional range of the Buddhist path: the serene equanimity of the meditating Buddha, the fierce urgency of the wrathful protectors, the touching compassion of the Bodhisattvas who delay their own liberation to remain with suffering beings. ...