Buddhist Art & Architecture

This upper-division elective class is designed to explore the art and architecture of South, Southeast, and East Asia. We will examine how art and iconography responded to innovations in Buddhism, and how Buddhism itself has changed to accommodate local taste and stylistic preferences. Proceeding both regionally and thematically, we will visit iconographic features, figures, and architectural motifs in order to understand regional and cultural translation. Aside from cultivating a general knowledge base of these features, this class should further a general appreciation for regional specificity in art and major continuities and discontinuities in the Buddhist canon as it moves through Asia. The class will be compromised of lectures, discussion, informal group readings of primary texts, and kinetic/creative activities like ink painting.