Review in the New York Times today: July 22, 2005 Looking Into the Divine Eyes of Spiritual Sculptures By HOLLAND COTTER
The opening of the eyes is one of the very last steps in the making of a Hindu religious sculpture. A priest will ritually scrape the eye with a golden needle, or add an extra flick of paint, and a figure cast in bronze or carved in stone, a work of "fine art" in our dry vocabulary, becomes something else: a divinity who returns our gaze. Dozens of pairs of eyes look out from "Images of the Divine: South and Southeast Asian Sculpture From the Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection" at the Asia Society. The 50 sculptures come from what is considered to be one of the finest small gatherings of such material in the United States. They are also, individually and in concert, thrilling examples of spiritually activist art, which is what all great religious art is. They were not made primarily to entertain or give optical pleasure, although they do both. Their job was to wake you up, point you in a moral direction, make you look at the greed, hatred and delusions that sit like sharp rocks in the soul. Once you see the truth about yourself, the idea is, you can change yourself. And when you change yourself, you change the world. That's the karmic deal.... Read the whole review at: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/22/arts/design/22cott.html?8hpib or: http://tinyurl.com/8cv8y Very nice descriptions of some of the pieces, and a bunch of photographs. To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
