Buddhist Art and Architecture in Tibet

Abstract

Fifty years ago, Tibetan art and architecture were fields in an early stage of development in the West. Early Western knowledge of Tibetan art and architecture was largely due to the pioneering work of early 20th-century scholars such as Giuseppe Tucci, Joseph Hackin, and Alice Getty. These fields have developed significantly over the past few decades, for multiple reasons. These reasons include general growth in interest in Tibetan culture and religion following the Chinese occupation of Tibet, and in the Tibetan diaspora, from the 1950s onward. The Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s in China led to the destruction of a tremendous amount of Tibetan art and architecture, and to the displacement within China of many works of Tibetan art that were not destroyed. However, the opening of China to the outside world in the post-Mao era led to the growing availability of Tibetan art on international art markets and gave foreign scholars access to surviving architectural monuments. This has led to a rapid growth in the understanding of Tibetan art history and stylistics. This work has been undertaken by a wide range of scholars, from North America and Europe, as well as Japan and India. More recently, there has also been considerable growth in scholarship within China by Tibetan and Han Chinese scholars.