Description
The Great Buddha – two openings of light in a dark room
The picture stands upright and is largely dark: brown, reddish tones and deep blue dominate. In the middle rises a large carved statue with folded hands and closed eyes, set on a dark blue, folded base. In the foreground two women sit; the left one has red-brown hair and her knees drawn up, the right one sits cross-legged and holds a hand near her mouth. Beside them lies a red-orange cloth, and at the very bottom right two pale animals sleep. Behind the statue two figures pass: one in a pink dress carries a shallow yellow dish on her head, the other stands beside her. The work is held by the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow under the inventory number Zh-3368, and the year is 1899.
Two openings of light
In this gloom there are only two places where light enters. At the upper left a tiny, clearly lit scene is set into the wall: a group at a table laid with white cloth, and beside it a standing dark figure. On the right a tall arch opens, through which a night sky with a narrow crescent moon can be seen. Both openings are cool and bright, and everything between them is warm and dark. It is this span that carries the whole picture.
What can be said about the scene at the table
The scene at the upper left is painted so small that it can be described but not confidently named. We see a table covered in white, several seated figures and one standing. What exactly it represents we do not interpret here: the museum record says nothing about it, and we add no explanation we cannot rest on a source.
Marks along the top edge
Along the top edge of the canvas run dark marks that look like writing. The museum record we were able to read gives no inscription, and we could not decipher these marks. That is a limit of our reading, not a claim about the canvas.
How a hand-painted reproduction is made
Every reproduction here is hand-painted in oil on canvas, stroke by stroke. In this motif it is the relation between the darkness and the two bright openings that is hardest: if the gloom is lightened too far, both openings lose their force and the picture becomes uniform. Before dispatch you receive a photograph of the finished work for approval.
- Subject: a large statue in a dark room, two seated women in front, an arch with the moon at the right.
- Technique: oil on canvas, dark warm colour and two cool bright places.
- Sizes: portrait format, from 35 x 50 cm to 140 x 200 cm; 65 x 90 cm and 92 x 130 cm are often chosen.
- Of note: the only view outward is the narrow crescent moon in the arch on the right.
If the same period interests you, see also There is the Temple (Parahi te marae), Her Name was Vairaumati and Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?. The museum gives the measurement as height by width: 134 x 95 cm, a portrait format.
