Angkor Wat Beauty

Title

Angkor Wat Beauty

Artist

Rob Hemphill

Medium

Photograph - Photography

Description

Beautiful bas-reliefs are found throughout all of the Angkor Wat sites. These sculptures are in the main Angkor temple complex. The detail and complexity of the work is stunning to say the least.

Khmer sculpture refers to the stone sculpture of the Khmer Empire, which ruled a territory based on modern Cambodia, but rather larger, from the 9th to the 13th century. The most celebrated examples are found in Angkor, which served as the seat of the empire.

Earlier Khmer art were influenced by Indian influences of Hindu themes. By the 7th century, Khmer sculpture begins to drift away from its Hindu influences – pre-Gupta for the Buddhist figures, Pallava for the Hindu figures – and through constant stylistic evolution, it comes to develop its own originality, which by the 10th century can be considered complete and absolute. An example of Khmer style that totally departed from Indian sculpture tradition is the wholeness of its figure, which bears similarities to the ancient Egyptian sculpture.

Unlike almost all of Indian and Javanese Hindu-Buddhist stone sculptures, which were carved in high reliefs, slabs or supported by stelae on the figure's back, Khmer sculpture is carved wholly in the round. Khmer stone sculpture did not employ any stelae on the back of the figure to support it, as the result broken arms, hands or ankles vividly attested to the vulnerability of this format. Nevertheless, Khmer sculptors seems to wish their works to be seen from all sides in the garbagriha in the center of the temple. Khmers attempted to make free-standing statues, supported by an arch or by an attribute of the divinity such as a piece of clothing or a hand-held object.

Khmer sculpture soon goes beyond religious representation, which becomes almost a pretext in order to portray court figures in the guise of gods and goddesses. But furthermore, it also comes to constitute a means and end in itself for the execution of stylistic refinement, like a kind of testing ground. We have already seen how the social context of the Khmer kingdom provides a second key to understanding this art. But we can also imagine that on a more exclusive level, small groups of intellectuals and artists were at work, competing among themselves in mastery and refinement as they pursued a hypothetical perfection of style. (Wikipedia)

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Featured in the following FAA Groups:

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"Fine Art America Professionals" 11/04/2020

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Uploaded

November 3rd, 2020

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