Thai art and visual art was traditionally and primarily Buddhist and Royal Art. Sculpture was almost exclusively of Buddha images, while painting was confined to illustration of books and decoration of buildings, primarily palaces and temples. Thai Buddha images from different periods have a number of distinctive styles. Contemporary Thai art often combines traditional Thai elements with modern techniques.
Traditional Thai paintings showed subjects in two dimensions without perspective. The size of each element in the picture reflected its degree of importance. The primary technique of composition is that of apportioning areas: the main elements are isolated from each other by space transformers. This eliminated the intermediate ground, which would otherwise imply perspective. Perspective was introduced only as a result of Western influence in the mid-19th century.
The most frequent narrative subjects for paintings were or are: the Jataka stories, episodes from the life of the Buddha, the Buddhist heavens and hells, and scenes of daily life.
The Sukhothai period began in the 14th century in the Sukhothai kingdom. Buddha images of the Sukhothai period are elegant, with sinuous bodies and slender, oval faces. This style emphasized the spiritual aspect of the Buddha, by omitting many small anatomical details. The effect was enhanced by the common practice of casting images in metal rather than carving them. This period saw the introduction of the "walking Buddha" pose.
Sukhothai artists tried to follow the canonical defining marks of a Buddha, as they are set out in ancient Pali texts: Skin so smooth that dust cannot stick to it; Legs like a deer; Thighs like a banyan tree; Shoulders as massive as an elephant's head; Arms round like an elephant's trunk, and long enough to touch the knees; Hands like lotuses about to bloom; Fingertips turned back like petals; head like an egg; Hair like scorpion stingers; Chin like a mango stone; Nose like a parrot's beak; Earlobes lengthened by the earrings of royalty; Eyelashes like a cow's; Eyebrows like drawn bows.
Sukhothai also produced a large quantity of glazed ceramics in the Sawankhalok style, which were traded throughout south-east Asia.
Read more about this topic: History Of Eastern Art
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