Weiner Mihályné szerk.: Az Iparművészeti Múzeum Évkönyvei 8. (Budapest, 1965)

HOPP FERENC MÚZEUM — MUSÉE FERENC HOPP - Felvinczi Takáts, Zoltán: An old Chinese monastic Picture of Manjushri

A N OLD CHINESE MONASTIC PICTURE OE MANJUSHRI A rule, prescribed to Chinese Buddhistic monasteries, was to exhibit in refectories a picture representing the Exalted One or him in guise of Manjushri as mendicant monk. Such a picture was once offered in Paris, in Hotel Drouot, where a Hungarian painter, Géza Vörös, acquired it. He appreciated this work of art until his death. His widow offered it to the F. Hopp Museum of Eastern Asiatic Arts. It had been soon acquired. The picture deserves serious appreciation. Its composition is a very attractive one. Its technical qualities are exceptional. Painted on close woven delicate silk, with pointed brush, it is already because of these, its qualities a true representative of Chinese Buddhist art. There is to be seen on it, as principal figure, a young bhikshu with totally shaved head, bare footed, clad in long mantle, sitting on a resting lion. Behind him is standing a young attendant boy, holding the khakkhara (hsi-chang). A votary is lying prostrate before. The composition of the picture is built on opposing elements. The chief person with his vahanam and the attendant have found their place at the left side of the background, higher than the half of the height of the whole picture, where they are forming a closed group. The prostrated figure, apparently an aged man, is visible from the back, turned to the principal figure in the right corner of the foreground. The white shell pigment on the head of the young bhikshu is partly peeled off. The traces of his face are scarcely visible. Besides, they are given with the minimum of fine strokes. Those of the childish looking acolyte are clearly visible. All other visible parts of the body, the fine hands of the bhikshu and the attendant, the right forearm of the bhikshu, his rather slim open part of the breast till the abdomen are white ; his partly visible slender feet are only tinted a little reddish. Most remarkable is the difference between the two faces. That of the bhikshu, as representing a god, although in guise, is in his absolutely transcendental, meanwhile the attendant boy, with his childish face, looks as a really life-like creature. These parts of the picture, with the most expressing lion's face, form the pride of the composition. The bhikshu, sitting on the back of the lion in some posture of relaxation — the left ankle crossing the right knee — has in his lap the patra, holding it in his right hand ; the left one rests on its cover. The lion looks a rather old 11* 163