Gaochang: Head of a Heavenly Being
Clay
Gaochang: Head of a Heavenly Being
CHINA, Xinjiang, Turpan
The head was excavated from the Buddhist ruins of Gaochang. It depicts a Central Asian male, judging from the curly full beard. A peaked headdress with a fish-scale pattern is worn. It is similar to headdresses worn by court officials during the Tang dynasty (618–907). The influence may stem from when the area was under Chinese hegemony. The facial features are exaggerated with arched eyebrows, bulging eyes, a small pursed mouth, and a curly mustache. Similar statues made of clay and dated to the Late Tang period (846–907) were unearthed from the same site, though smaller in scale.
For more details, go to the Encyclopedia of Buddhist Arts: Sculpture G-M, page 370.
Cite this article:
Hsingyun, et al. "Gaochang: Head of a Heavenly Being." Encyclopedia of Buddhist Arts: Sculpture G-M, vol. 11, 2016, pp. 370.
Hsingyun, Youheng, Yann Lovelock, Yuan Chou, Susan Huntington, Gary Edson, and Robert Neather. 2016. "Gaochang: Head of a Heavenly Being" In Encyclopedia of Buddhist Arts: Sculpture G-M, 11:370.
Hsingyun, Youheng, Lovelock, Y., Chou, Y., Huntington, S., Edson, G., & Neather, R.. (2016). Gaochang: Head of a Heavenly Being. In Encyclopedia of Buddhist Arts: Sculpture G-M (Vol. 11, pp. 370).
@misc{Hsingyun2016,
author = Hsingyun and Youheng and Lovelock, Yann and Chou, Yuan and Huntington, Susan and Edson, Gary and Neather, Robert,
booktitle = {Encyclopedia of Buddhist Arts: Sculpture G-M},
pages = 370,
title = {{Gaochang: Head of a Heavenly Being}},
volume = 11,
year = {2016}}
author = Hsingyun and Youheng and Lovelock, Yann and Chou, Yuan and Huntington, Susan and Edson, Gary and Neather, Robert,
booktitle = {Encyclopedia of Buddhist Arts: Sculpture G-M},
pages = 370,
title = {{Gaochang: Head of a Heavenly Being}},
volume = 11,
year = {2016}}