Depictions of The Buddha in Art
Buddhas are frequently represented in the form of statues and paintings. Commonly seen designs include:
- the Seated Buddha
- the Reclining Buddha
- the Standing Buddha
- Hotei or Budai, the obese Laughing Buddha, usually seen in China (This figure is believed to be a representation of a medieval Chinese monk who is associated with Maitreya, the future Buddha, and is therefore technically not a Buddha image.)
- the Emaciated Buddha, which shows Siddhartha Gautama during his extreme ascetic practice of starvation.
The Buddha statue shown calling for rain is a pose common in Laos.
Read more about this topic: Buddhahood
Famous quotes containing the words depictions of, depictions, buddha and/or art:
“Surely, of all creatures we eat, we are most brutal to snails. Helix optera is dug out of the earth where he has been peacefully enjoying his summer sleep, cracked like an egg, and eaten raw, presumably alive. Or boiled in oil. Or roasted in the hot ashes of a wood fire.... If God is a snail, Bosch’s depictions of Hell are going to look like a vicarage tea-party.”
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)
“Surely, of all creatures we eat, we are most brutal to snails. Helix optera is dug out of the earth where he has been peacefully enjoying his summer sleep, cracked like an egg, and eaten raw, presumably alive. Or boiled in oil. Or roasted in the hot ashes of a wood fire.... If God is a snail, Bosch’s depictions of Hell are going to look like a vicarage tea-party.”
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)
“Brute force crushes many plants. Yet the plants rise again. The Pyramids will not last a moment compared with the daisy. And before Buddha or Jesus spoke the nightingale sang, and long after the words of Jesus and Buddha are gone into oblivion the nightingale still will sing. Because it is neither preaching nor commanding nor urging. It is just singing. And in the beginning was not a Word, but a chirrup.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“We are all hungry and thirsty for concrete images. Abstract art will have been good for one thing: to restore its exact virginity to figurative art.”
—Salvador Dali (1904–1989)