The Cult of Shiva in South India
GENERAL DESCRIPTION
In India from at least the 5th century onward, the major Hindu gods were Vishnu and Shiva. Shiva is a very complex deity. The god of death and rebirth, Shiva is sometimes imagined in his terrible aspect, as Lord of Destruction, who meditates among the ashes of corpses on a cremation ground. He is a supreme yogi, an ascetic of great powers, with wild hair and an ash-smeared body, who transcends ordinary reality.
Gerald Murphy in Dallas
GENERAL DESCRIPTION
It was not until 1960 that Murphy's painting was again in the limelight, and it happened in Dallas. Murphy was approached by Douglas MacAgy, Director of the Dallas Museum of Contemporary Arts (DMCA), who was organizing an exhibition of the work of American modernist artists. Entitled American Genius in Review: I, the show not only presented the rediscovery of Gerald Murphy's work but marked the artist's first comprehensive exhibition in America.
Vishnu
GENERAL DESCRIPTION
Vishnu, the invincible protector and preserver of the universe, serves as a hero figure who reestablishes cosmic order in many Hindu stories. He embodies the characteristics of goodness and mercy. When the balance of the universe is disturbed by evil or destructive forces, Vishnu will prevail over the spiritually ignorant demons and restore dharma or moral order.
Hinduism
GENERAL DESCRIPTION
Hinduism is a complex system of beliefs. It incorporates many religious texts and many local and village gods, along with the principle triad of the gods Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. Hinduism includes the belief that opposing forces are aspects of one eternal truth, the belief in reincarnation, and the practice of good deeds in hopes of being reborn into a higher caste.
Vishnu as Varaha
GENERAL DESCRIPTION
Vishnu assumed the form of Varaha, his third of ten incarnations (avatars), in order to rescue the earth, which had been submerged beneath the primordial sea by the demon Hiranyaksha. Following a great battle, Varaha successfully returned the earth, here personified as a female figure (Bhudevi) clinging to one of his tusks, as is typical in images of Varaha.
2002.25 Vishnu as Varaha
GENERAL DESCRIPTION
Vishnu and Shiva are the chief gods in modern India. In the older triad of Hinduism, Brahma is the creator; Vishnu, the preserver; and Shiva, the destroyer.
Pillar Figure
GENERAL DESCRIPTION
This figure of a female mounted on a monsterlike creature is very much like the females appearing on the pillar uprights of a railing from the site at Mathura known as Bhutesar. Those females also stand on monster-like figures, albeit ones more clearly human than this. Those, too, have observers peering out from a veranda at the top of the pillar, though in the case of the Bhutesar figures, it is always a playful pair.
2010.17 Thinking bodhisattva
GENERAL DESCRIPTION
This sculpture is an example of the rich cultural interp
Lokapala and burial practices in Tang dynasty China
GENERAL DESCRIPTION
Two glazed pottery guardian figures, heavily armored, with elaborate bird-crowned headgear and ferocious facial features, stand in dynamic poses with arms raised in threatening gestures. One stands on a bull and the second tramples a demon. Scientific tests indicate that despite their near new appearance they are almost 1,300 years old. One wonders how such elaborate objects sculpted in fragile pottery could have survived so long. What are they?