A small Buddhist object sits quietly, its three-headed masculine figure locked in tantric union with a feminine one. But the nitty gritty of their enlightened sexual activity isn’t the only thing that this 15th-century Tibetan bronze is hiding.
The 32cm-high object is full of tiny scrolls and sacred objects – revealed only when the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam used hi-tech imaging to peer inside. They may have been around for millennia but Asian bronzes still have secrets to reveal, and this is the message of the Rijksmuseum’s latest exhibition.
When Sara Creange, conservator of metals, began research into this recently acquired Guhyasamaja Akshobhya gilt copper statue, she wanted more information than a simple X-ray yielded.
“We had questions about the interior because you can see a copper plate has been hammered over the base,” she says. “Based on knowledge of similar statues from Tibet and other cultures, when you have a hollow statue with a sealed face, you may expect something to be inside it – little figurines, gemstones … scrolls, beans or seeds … But this one was really, really carefully packed.”
Working with partners at the Delft University of Technology, the museum used neutron tomography to scan the statue and discovered that the heads and bodies were full of organic material: scrolls, possibly inscribed with tantric mantras, plus objects that could be seeds, paper, wood, ash or bone. Expert Lambert van Eijck is currently working on detailed analysis to identify them more precisely. “This is all part of a big puzzle,” says Creange. “These statues were very significant in their ritual use, and I believe that they were not intended to be viewed by the uninitiated. Every single detail has significance.”
It is one of 75 artefacts, both owned and on loan, in a show at the Rijksmuseum that aims to wow a western public with the art (and artifice) of Asian bronze-making. The exhibition kicks off with a prehistoric anthropomorphic figure from the Ganges Valley in India, from around 1500-1000 BC – dubbed “Patrick” because it reminds staff of a star-shaped figure from SpongeBob SquarePants, although it is oxidised copper rather than cartoon pink.
It then explores how the bronze alloy as we know it was developed, alongside impressive casting techniques. “Every bronze artefact is basically copper, but with tin,” says curator of south-east Asian art William Southworth. “Tin was a rare material, but in Asia there was the biggest tin deposit in the world, a tin belt from the south of Burma, through Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia. In Europe, standard bronze only became common with imports.”
But across Asia, civilisations realised that this durable material was a fantastic medium for celebrating – and, indeed, marketing – belief systems. Southworth tells the story of the ancient Chinese Buddhist monk and explorer, Faxian, who spread knowledge of Buddhist texts and probably took bronze images with him too. “Images of Buddhism were an easy way for people to visualise, and different sects encouraged the use of images as a means of devotion,” he says.
Bronzes were used in ancestor worship, funeral rites, Buddhism, Hinduism and eventually Christianity. To the delight and fascination of visitors, a final room in the exhibition reveals the secrets of “magic mirrors”. These extraordinary bronze objects, painstakingly polished, were originally created in Edo-period Japan from the 17th to the mid-19th century, and contain a hidden Christian image which can be projected if a light shines through at a particular angle. The Rijksmuseum commissioned two magic mirrors from a Kyoto craftsman who still knows the method. “When Christianity first was introduced, the believer had to worship it secretly,” says Ching-Ling Wang, curator of east Asian Art. “It’s a way of hiding the icons inside, which is rather amazing.”
You might think you’d be left cold by rooms filled with bronzes from other cultures but even though the Rijksmuseum shows them stripped of clothing and floral decoration, they still feel interactive. You can walk through an ornate 19th-century Indian temple archway from Tamil Nadu that would have been illuminated by oil lamps (shame they aren’t lit), hum underneath a set of eighth-century Chinese bells to set off their sound, while an almost life-sized Japanese 18th-century Buddha Amida is already popular for mindful selfies.
But Taco Dibbits, general director of the Rijksmuseum, said that this show aims to remove Asian bronzes from cultural studies to put their artistry in the spotlight. “You often see that in Europe we look at Asian bronzes and Asian arts from an ethnographical perspective, but they are artworks,” he said. “It’s art history that’s worthy of study, and an art history that shows an incredible beauty.”
Maybe, to some, they seem elaborate lumps of irrelevant bronze. But think of those hidden Tibetan scrolls or slow down and look at the polished knees of a Buddha, gently touched by generations unknown and long gone. “It’s amazing that people have been standing in front of these statues for centuries and centuries with their sorrows, with their private emotions, their worries,” said Menno Fitski, head of Asian art. “This somehow accretes around these sculptures. It forms extra layers. It makes them more than just pieces of metal.”
