World Religions

Our recent trip to the Asian Art Museum was interesting to say the least. We viewwed several different religious art relics from China, India, and Japan. My favorites were the Chinese or Japanese guardian statues. The way they were carved was intricate, and their eyes were so realistic it was a little scary. One thing I noted was that most of the art was from Buddhism. We saw one Jain sculpture, maybe four Hindu sculptures, but the rest was mostly Buddhism. I think this may have had something to do with the relative age of the religions or beliefs. Buddhism is younger than Hinduism, and in Jainism, plainness was encouraged and thus art was discouraged. Still, however, I was intiruged, and felt that it made the museum seem a little one sided. We barely viewed any other aspect of religion in these respective countries, such as Shintoism. If we did, it certainly wasn’t explained or embellished upon. I think the Shinto sculptures especially would have been fascinating, seeing how multi-faceted that particular religion is. All in all, it was an interesting trip. Some of the other parts of the musuem that did not pertain to religion were great, such as the Peacock room. i would do it again, given the opportunity.

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