I guess I got sidetracked in the last post, but the monkeys in Asia can do that to you. But now we’re back to the otherworldly grace in Thai art.
The animal kingdom is much more elegant in the Buddha’s footprint at Bangkok’s Wat Pho–no coke cans in sight here. Beasts are as luminous as the celestial beings in Part One. That’s the great thing about Thai art–it makes everything enchanting. The more you explore it, the more wondrous it becomes.
Thai art isn’t based on the 3 dimensional perspective that developed in the West. It’s not as analytical. Instead, it allows everything to be divinely beautiful.
This applies to real critters, and
Imaginary ones.
It also applies to the natural environment.
In Wat Pho’s Buddha’s footprint, stones glitter as though they’re alive.
And vegetation shines so much that it seems as permanent as the stones.
And the stones of Mt Meru are as radiant as the palace they support. Mt Meru in Indian mythology is as almost as vast as the whole universe. But Thais made it pretty and elegant.
Even mundane scenes, like the ones above, radiate grace.
So Thai art makes everything it touches enchanting, from the vastest panoramas Indian imaginations could whip up to the most ordinary settings.
So expect more posts on Thai art–and expect to become addicted if you keep reading them. It’s a much better habit than coke.
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