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The Power of Images: A Bodhisattva

June 1, 2018 in Archaic Chinese, Asian Art, Chinese, Chinese Buddhist Sculpture, Video

People coming into the gallery often comment on the feeling they get from the Buddhist sculptures, and in fact that was the purpose of this art. This brings us to a paradox of Buddhist images, for originally Buddhism was aniconic, focused on the disciplines of meditation and release from the material world. How were these images explained in Buddhism, and what role did they serve? These are the questions we ask in this video, which will be one of a series. We pull in pop culture references to help illustrate the power that these images are meant to contain.

The Paradox of the Aztecs

April 6, 2018 in pre-Columbian, Video

In keeping with Spring, we address the theme of the cycle of life, as reflected in the art and beliefs of the Aztecs. The Aztecs are the ultimate expression of the Meso-American cultural development, and sadly the last, as with the arrival of the Spanish, it was all destroyed, by war and by the diseases they brought with them. We are now beginning to learn that the conquest of the Americas was more the result of disease, rather than the superiority of the Spanish. The paradox of the Aztecs is the contrast between the undeniably high achievement of their civilization and the brutality of their religious rites. They come from a totally different point of view from us, and their art reflects that, with its inescapable focus on human sacrifice. I find their art weirdly and disturbingly fascinating, and I’m sure I’m not alone. The challenge is to try to understand what it meant to them, rather than just our horror of it. What we do know is that this ritualized brutality was believed by […]

Monster Masks The Americas to China

March 17, 2018 in Archaic Chinese, Asian Art, Chinese, Jade, pre-Columbian, Video

Mixtec Cup: Use of Geometric Patterns Relating Uxmal to Mitla

March 4, 2018 in pre-Columbian, Video

A look at a small slip painted stemmed cup, and its geometric patterns and how they relate to the architecture of the Mixtecos in Mitla, and similarities with the Mayan architecture at Uxmal. The stemmed cup is Mixtec, 1350 – 1521 A.D. Slip painted ceramic, 2 3/8 inches high.

The Apollo and Cyparissus Gem from the Poniatowski Collection

January 19, 2018 in Gems, Poniatowski, Video

In this video we take a close look at one of the more beautiful Poniatowski gems in my possession, a large oval amethyst set in its original gold frame depicting the story of the cypress tree as told by Ovid in his Metamorphoses. I have told this tale when I first acquired the gem here: https://tomswope.com/another-rediscovered-paniatowski-gem/ The story told by Ovid is beautiful, relating the story of a handsome boy, a tame and beloved deer, and the god who loved the boy. The gem shows the pivotal moment when the boy realizes he has killed his beloved deer and wants to die, with Apollo trying to pull him back from the scene of the tragedy. Ultimately Apollo loses the boy to grief, and transforms him into the cypress tree, which are found at the abodes of dead to this day, mourning forever.

Saying Goodbye to the Old Year: a look at three Stone Age Tools

December 31, 2017 in Video

As we close out 2017 and look forward to 2018, I’d like to take a look at long, long ago, to a time relatively unknown to us today, and mostly forgotten, but which in fact represents the majority of the time of human existence on the planet earth; the Stone Age. Human beings have been on this earth for over 2 million years, and we know very little about this long and important period, it is truly prehistoric. Modern thinking about this period of man’s existence is changing from that of man being in a hobbesian state, in which, “the life of man, (was) solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”, to one where the hunter gatherer life was actually quite good. The wonderful book, Sapiens, a brief history of Humankind, by Yuval Noah Harari, sums up much of this new thinking in a highly readable manner. The fossil evidence shows that individuals then had more leisure time and better nutrition and overall health than seen in the early agricultural societies. This surprising turn of thought […]

An Olmec Perforator

November 27, 2017 in Jade, pre-Columbian, Video

A look at an Olmec perforator, ritual object, from about 1000 B.C. Carved of green jade and beautifully polished, with a awl like slender pointed end, with double spoon like basins at the other end, it was used in ritual blood letting. Blood sacrifice is particular to the mesoamerican world, and the Olmecs were the mother culture of this region. The Olmec sites are in the low-lying tropical Gulf regions of Veracruz and Tabasco, and are best known for the giant stone heads.

Greek Bronze Inkwell

November 27, 2017 in Bronze, Greek, Video

A look at a very well preserved Greek Bronze inkwell from the 4th Century B.C. It is remarkably complete with its suspension chains and lid, and the pyxis like body of the inkwell is decorated with finely granulated bands, as is the base and top. It is one of the finest examples of its type I have seen.

A Black Glazed Stemmed Cup

November 27, 2017 in Archaic Chinese, Video

When I first purchased this delicate, thin walled stemmed cup, I was unclear as to where or when it was made. I had no doubt it was ancient, and it reminded me of Etruscan black bucchero ware. However, it is much finer than Etruscan bucchero ware, and I discovered that it is in fact Chinese, and Neolithic in date, about 5,000 years old. It is an amazing object.

The Plumed Serpent

November 27, 2017 in Contemporary, Video

Here we look at the subject of the serpent in Mesoamerican art, one a contemporary version of the Aztec motif by Robert Graham, the other two Aztec stone sculptures. The plumed serpent was the symbol of Quetzalcoatl, one of the main deities of the Mesoamerican pantheon.

Wei to Tang: the dating of three Buddha heads

November 27, 2017 in Chinese Buddhist Sculpture, Video

A look at three Buddha heads from the 6th to 8th Centuries A.D. and how we can date them stylistically.

An Inlaid Bronze Vessel

November 26, 2017 in Archaic Chinese, Video

A look at a beautiful Chinese bronze Hu vessel, inlaid with copper, and dating to the Warring States Period, 475 – 221 B.C. What is amazing about this piece is the use of copper to inlay into the bronze, related materials that we do not consider precious today, but was treated as a precious material by the ancient Chinese. The amount of technical skill and labor to inlay the thin pieces of copper into precisely cut depressions is quite remarkable and we are able to see it clearly in this video.

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