Reading Buddhist Art

Rating:
Summary: Potentially good reference needs more work
Review: "Reading Buddhist Art" has been so helpful to me as a student studying Asian art because it breaks down complex symbols and iconography and makes it easy to understand. The pictures are great and the text is clear and concise. I highly recommend this book to any students or anyone who has an interest in learning and understanding the fundamental artistic components of Buddhist art. It is a key reference for me as I continue my studies.

Rating:
Summary: Eleven Heads and Eight Arms
Review: Buddhism is cool. All around us we see Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, Tibetan prayer flags, and people standing at bus stops with their hands in mudras. Buddhism has been cool for a long time and throughout Asia smart people and devoted people have spent a long time delving into the elaborate stories about enlightened ones, buddhas of the past and future, celestial deities. Some have morphed from men to women. Some can save your soul, heal you, make you happy when you're sad. Meher McArthur's book can help you find your way through the bewhildering maze of Buddhist imagery and iconography. Laid out in a intuitive style and clearly explained, this guide is especially useful to students trying to get a grip on why that statue has eleven heads and eight arms. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Potentially good reference needs more work
Review: Despite nice illustrations and photos, this work suffers most from poor organization. Instead of going through each of the building blocks f Himalayan statuary and iconography, then putting them together (i.e., mudras, vehicles, hand objects, etc.), it is organized (not right word) in a peculiar fashion that resists its use as a reference book. Often it goes into great detail about trivial things, then omits more important things. For example, it clutters the landscape with discussions about different sects - this is really premature. If you read German, my recommendation is buying Wolfgang Schumann's masterful "Buddhistische Bilderwelt" [The world of Buddhist Iconography], which you can probably buy from www.amazon.de.

Rating:
Summary: bewilderingly disappointing
Review: I don't like to write reviews for books that are not good but I feel that people should think twice before spending their money on this one.
Imagine a book called 'Dictionary of European Words.' It would contain some German verbs, some French nouns, some Italian adjectives, etc. How useful is it going to be?
This book would be a cousin to such an imaginary but nontheless absurd book.

My main gripe is that, as someone already pointed out, it is badly organized. It is nearly useless as a reference book. The faults are too many to mention, so I shall not, except for just one example: all the pictures are B&W, and not even numbered, so that one has to sort through just to figure out which description applies to which one of the many illustration found on the same page.

The real source of the problem with this book is that it tries to cover way too many cultures -- from Thailand to Korea to Japan to Bhutan -- and it tries this in a mere 216 pages (!), including the frontispiece, blanks, and index: as if a Guide to Buddhist Art could be done like a store catalogue. Just the symbolism of the mudras alone would easily take 200 pages, I should think.

Every Buddhist culture has its own peculiar relationship and input to Buddhism. Although there are large areas of doctrinal overlap that all Buddhist cultures have in common, each culture still has its own line-up and order in the pantheon of deities, rituals, implements and practices. This book blithely glosses right over them -- like Doria looking for Nemo in the deep blue sea.

On that note, it bears mentioning that the author has a MA in Asian Art from London University's School of Oriental and African Studies, with a major in Japanese Art. My feeling is that the author herself has but a superficial familiarity with the topic at hand.
The author was either brave, reckless, or ignorant to attempt so much with so little. This is unfortunately more of a scansion than a reading, properly speaking.
(Compare Robert Beer's Encyclopaedia for a guide done right.)

But to be fair, it might be somewhat helpful to those just beginning their studies and are grabbing at straws.

Rating:
Summary: In defense against some negative reviews
Review: Imagine yourself in an Asian museum, or some Asian art shop, on whose wall hangs a scroll that depicted some sort of a Buddhist figure. Assuming that you're someone who is interested in art, wouldn't it only be natural that you turn curious in the identity of the figure? This book, in my view contrary to the negative reviews, does a great job in meeting such need.

The main part of book assumes a very convenient two-page format. The left hand side page consists entirely of photographs and illustrations. This side serves as the index -- as described above, you are to scan through these pictures to find which figure (Shakyamuni, Vairochana, Maitreya, etc), posture (standing Buddha, sitting Buddha, etc), artifact, mudra (hand gesture that is believed in the Vajrayana sect to facilitate reaching enlightenment faster) you seek to identify. To the right are explanations of related symbolism, function, different representations, convenient cross references, and even transliterations of the name of the identity in question into various languages (mostly Sanskrit, Chinese, Japanese; less Korean, Vietnamese, Mongolian).

The book evidently isn't meant to be exhaustive. As repeatedly said, I think it is to serve as an introduction to the field. Criticizing the book for being short is equivalent to saying that no introductory book deserves to be written. No doubt there could be more detailed and thoroughly researched references in the field. Yet for beginners like myself brevity has its own merits (though in the long run I might have to purchase one of those more detailed references).

Having said this much, some mundane criticism of my own: 1) all photos are in black and white, and a bit too small to allow for appreciation of the details -- imagine a colorful mandala (a geometric diagram that depicts the Buddhist universe) enclosed in a 4x4 inch black-and-white box. 2) In many cases the explanation on the right hand side page does not match the gesture in the accompanying illustrations.

Rating:
Summary: A wonderful introduction
Review: With its excellent organization, concise explanations in clear language, and straightforward iconographic drawings, my entry level students found Reading Buddhist Art a welcome clarifying light upon a subject that is often impenetrably intricate and arcane. They were enthusiastic about this book. McArthur's achievement is first her neutrality; she does not emphasize one branch of Buddhism over another but rather by revealing the uniting threads in a religion that expresses itself in wide variation among disparate cultures and eras, she offers an overview that allows students to attain a secure foundation of concepts as revealed through art. Second is her exceptionally well designed, easy to follow, structured organization, in which the important particulars of Buddhism are revealed according to this cosmic yet also international and historical scope, and the intricacies of symbolism are shown to have a logic that unites iconography from seeming details to major architectural forms. Short, well-written opening essays focused on history and fundamental concepts precede a pictorial survey of the essential pantheon, presented individually in hierarchical order according to the original Indian name. Each deity is accompanied by a subordinate list of major variant names as they appear in different countries, and a brief yet thorough introductory description supported by comparative iconographic illustrations. This is followed by explanations of minor symbolism, major architectural monuments, a glossary of important terms, and other essential information. The beauty of this text is that it encourages students to learn actively, from what they can see, rather than bog themselves down in abstract descriptions of doctrine. It can stand alone as a beginner's guide in at a museum or temple site, and also function as a superb supporting reference in a general introductory class. McArthur has given any interested entry-level person the means to create a solid foundation on which more specialized advanced studies can be securely built.