Tag: Culture
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Ramakien landscapes
Ramakien landscapes The rice fields, the trees and bushes, the mountains, they are all painted in great detail, as is the palace with its inhabitants and visitors in the foreground. It’s the style of realist miniature painting applied to the large format of the gallery walls. I find it interesting that the landscape on the…
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Picturesque Ramakien
Picturesque Ramakien A must see in Bangkok: the Ramayana in its Thai version, painted as a picture story on the walls around the temple of the Emerald Buddha inside the Grand Palace. Hundreds of meters of detailed paintings, the oldest dating from late 18th century, show us scenes from the Ramayana in the style and…
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Beauty Queen
Beauty Queen In the entrance hall of the Queen’s Gallery in Bangkok hangs Sirikit, the regal Thai Queen mother who has founded the art gallery. And at the exhibition I visited there I saw a frivolous Miss Earth busy protecting the world. Two queens, but what a difference. Photo of the week: The Queen’s Gallery,…
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Charpai
Charpai Timeless symbol of village India. Photo of the week: charpai, Orchha, M.P., India 2014
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Curtain in the wind
Curtain in the wind Not a breath of wind but trees and houses struggle to remain standing. Photo of the week: Curtain, Bageshwar, Uttarakhand, India 2013
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Light in the dark
Light in the dark There aren’t many Brahma temples in India and when we peep through the jalis of this one we see to our surprise a nicely lit Mukhalingam, a lingam with four faces. So this rare Brahma temple in Khajuraho is actually a Shiva temple. Without the help of Surya, the sun god,…
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Courtyard order
Courtyard order After last week’s two buffaloes out of more than half a billion livestock animals, we have here two specimens out of a total of 1.4 billion humans in India. A mother and child beautifying the courtyard of their house for an upcoming festival. Photo of the week: Courtyard, Orchha, Madhya Pradesh, India 2017
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Onigawara
Onigawara The scary creature on the roof is an ‘oni’, a Japanese ogre. Temple roofs are often ornamented with these ogre tiles (onigawara) and also with small round hanagawara, i.e. tiles with floral designs. The roofs of Japanese temples are intricate works of very fine craftsmanship. See for example the small roof on the photo…
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Okame
Okame Okame is the name for the mask of a young woman with a small upturned nose and big round cheeks. It is also the name of the wife of the master carpenter who built the large hall of the Senbon Shakado temple in Kyoto where I saw this nicely illuminated mask. The story goes…
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Noh apparition
Noh apparition In a Noh museum one can expect to see Noh masks. With their painted high eyebrows (hikimayu) and other typical features, Noh masks often have a striking appearance. But this mask, emerging from the dark, looks more like a phantom, with elements of the background faintly shining through its face.Do we see here…
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