<em>Head of a Guardian</em>, 13th century. Hinoki wood with lacquer on cloth, pigment, rock crystal, metal, 22 1/16 x 10 1/4 x 13 15/16 (56.0 x 26.0 x 35.5 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Alastair B. Martin, the Guennol Collection, 86.21. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: , 86.21_PS9.jpg)

Head of a Guardian, 13th century. Hinoki wood with lacquer on cloth, pigment, rock crystal, metal, 22 1/16 x 10 1/4 x 13 15/16 (56.0 x 26.0 x 35.5 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Alastair B. Martin, the Guennol Collection, 86.21. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: , 86.21_PS9.jpg)

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Head of a Guardian

Asian Art

On View: Asian Galleries, Arts of Japan, 2nd floor

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This dramatically scowling head is one of the most masterful and monumental examples of Japanese Buddhist sculpture in the United States. It once topped a giant wood sculpture of a heavenly protector in a Buddhist temple. It represented one of four guards who stood in aggressive postures around an image of the seated Buddha. Traces remain of bright-green paint on the surface; his fellow guardians were likely red, white, and yellow, and together they faced the four cardinal directions. These figures were supposed to scare away anything that threatened the religion, including qualities such as ignorance and greed.

The head is an important example of sculpture from Japan’s Kamakura period (1185–1333), when artists started to create more expressive, energetic depictions of Buddhist deities. Although the body is lost, the face reveals a great deal about how the figure would have looked: alert, menacing, and muscular. The artist used rock crystal for the eyes so they would have reflected light. Together with the open mouth (with its brightly painted teeth and tongue), the glinting eyes made this face powerful and intimidating, looming far above the viewer in the dimly lit interior of the temple.

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Gallery Label

This dramatic head once appeared atop the giant, muscular figure of a shitennō, or guardian figure, one of four surrounding an even larger figure of a Buddha that served as the primary focus for worship in a temple. The guardians stood in aggressive postures, fending off any evil that might come to the temple. With its crystal eyes and bright-green skin, this figure must have been an intimidating presence in the dimly lit temple interior. In the Kamakura period (1185–1333), Japanese sculptors introduced a new degree of naturalism and expression to previously idealized and serene Buddhist subjects. This head came from the collection of Kofuku-ji, an important temple in the city of Nara.

MEDIUM Hinoki wood with lacquer on cloth, pigment, rock crystal, metal

Place Made: Japan

DATES 13th century

PERIOD Kamakura Period

DIMENSIONS 22 1/16 x 10 1/4 x 13 15/16 (56.0 x 26.0 x 35.5 cm) (show scale)

COLLECTIONS Asian Art

ACCESSION NUMBER 86.21

CREDIT LINE Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Alastair B. Martin, the Guennol Collection

CATALOGUE DESCRIPTION An over-life-size head from a figure of one of the Shitenno, the four guardian kings of the cardinal directions in Buddhism. The head was at one time owned by the Nara temple Kofuku-ji. The fiery eyes, furrowed brow, prominent nose, and open mouth present a ferocious mien typical of these Heavenly Guardians, whose role was to protect the temple's sacred precincts. The head is carved of two blocks of wood, into which the topknot is inserted. Crystal inset eyes, painted on reverse. The filigree metal crown is a later replacement. Remains of polychrome on the outer surface, and traces of the painter's graffiti on the interior.

EXHIBITIONS

MUSEUM LOCATION This item is on view in Asian Galleries, Arts of Japan, 2nd floor

CAPTION Head of a Guardian, 13th century. Hinoki wood with lacquer on cloth, pigment, rock crystal, metal, 22 1/16 x 10 1/4 x 13 15/16 (56.0 x 26.0 x 35.5 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Alastair B. Martin, the Guennol Collection, 86.21. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: , 86.21_PS9.jpg)

IMAGE overall, 86.21_PS9.jpg., 2019

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RIGHTS STATEMENT Creative Commons-BY

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