Schweizer Asiatische Studien / Etudes asiatique suisse – serie

Luo Ping (1733-1799), known as the youngest of the Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou and a follower of Jin Nong (1687-1763), was one of the most versatile and compelling artists of his time. While his work covers all major painting subjects and exhibits great stylistic and conceptual variety, his personality appears equally multifaceted. Contemporaries and later critics characterized him variously as a cultural arriviste, a Confucian scholar of great moral dignity, a Buddhist monk, a loving and devout husband, an «eccentric» with strong leanings toward the supernatural, and even an anti-Manchu dissident. Structured as a comprehensive and largely chronological account of the artist’s life and his interactions with patrons of different geo-cultural environs, namely Yangzhou and Beijing, this study attempts to identify the factors that contributed to the unfolding of the master’s artistic voice. It includes an extensive examination of Luo’s personal, literary, and artistic engagement with Buddhism, which constituted a significant but hitherto obscure facet of his life and work.

Many aspects of Medieval Western Indian temple art have been the subject of scholarly attention. One type of temple-image which has been identified but heretofore unstudied is the portrait. This study brings together evidence of more than 200 images of historical lay people and ascetics from the medieval temples of Gujarat and Rajasthan. The author emphasizes Jain specimens, but also includes a number of notable Hindu examples. However, it is the evidence of the Jain portraits that is by far the most significant. This book provides some startling insights into the beliefs and practices of the Śvetāmbara sect of Jainism in a period from about the 12th to 17th centuries. The analysis of lay portraits illuminates some very significant episodes in this period of Jain history. The discussion of monks’ portraits presents much that is contrary to expectation. Evidence indicates that even Jain monks donated portraits of other monks. This is surprising since gifting is a practice commonly thought to be a lay prerogative and not allowed to ascetics. The reasons for these monastic donations are discussed and investigated, and reveal that the worldview of medieval Jain monks was often something very different from that portrayed in much of Jain scholarship to date.