Sino-Tibetan Style of Buddhist Sculpture: Articulation of the Attribution Problem

Abstract

This article is devoted to the concept of “style” and the possibility of its application in the attribution of works of Buddhist metal sculpture. This aspect, which, as a rule, is peripheral for classical Oriental studies, Buddhology, and history, where it is interpreted quite freely, is one of the key ones for art history and museum attribution activities. The author notes the terminological and factual diversity of the designation of the “Sino-Tibetan style” in the circle of researchers of the art of Buddhism. The author poses the question of what exactly the concept of “Sino-Tibetan style” means and whether it is an indication of the body of technical and plastic features of sculptures, or just a designation of the geography of the origin of Buddhist sculptures of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries made in the western provinces of China. The author refers to three sculptures which are the most controversial ones from the point of view of attribution (Maitreya Buddha from the private collection of A. V. Glazyrin (Ekaterinburg), Shakyamuni Buddha, and Begtse from the collection of the Sverdlovsk Regional Museum of Local Lore), which have several similar stylistic features, and which could presumably be attributed to the “Sino-Tibetan style” of the eighteenth century. Also, the article presents the results of the study of the metal composition of these sculptures using an X-ray fluorescence analyser (spectrometer). Based on the data obtained on the content of substances in the alloy and considering the general artistic and stylistic features of metal images, the author makes a conclusion as to when the attribution designation “Tibeto-Chinese style” is the most accurate one and when it can be applied to Buddhist gilded sculptures created on the territory of China (Manchu Qin dynasty) between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.