tuftears | Asian Art Museum: the Emperors' Treasures (Reply)

dracosphynx had the yen to go see the Emperors' Treasures exhibit up in the San Francisco Asian Art Museum, on the last weekend of the exhibit, so we headed up there. Yay, out into the Big Bloo Room!

I don't think I've actually been here before. This museum isn't in Chinatown or Golden Gate Park, it's actually near the Civic Center. We might have been better off taking the BART up.

This happy looking dragon was gracing the front of the museum.

Unfortunately no photos were permitted within the Emperors' Exhibit, due to the sensitivity of the items on display. I made a few sketches of interesting pieces, but nothing worth posting. I liked the 'carp leaping over waterfall' pot though. Seems that it's a parable; if a carp succeeds in making it up the Dragon's Fall, it transforms into a dragon. This is a metaphor for passing the scholars' examinations to become part of the Imperial bureaucracy.

We had lunch so we could wait for a large tour group to pass through. There was an 'I Ate The Pork Belly' promotion going; if you ate the pork belly-themed dish at one of the participating restaurants, you got a button which gave you a discount on admission to the exhibit. Bit late for us though since we had already paid. :)

It was pretty good, if a little on the small side. After a couple pieces, I started slicing off the extra fat. That' my general objection to pork belly, I don't like the huge slabs of fat that you tend to find on the meat. It's fine on bacon when the bacon is cooked crispy, but as a soft-cooked meat it makes the dish a little gummy.

The reason they make such a deal about it though, is that there was actually an Imperial treasure, a piece of semi-precious mineral that had been slightly dyed to resemble soy sauce-roasted pork belly. I could definitely see the resemblance. :)

Following that, we toured the rest of the museum, which began with Indian art and made its way around the country.

Ganesha greeted us quite genially. We made the acquaintance of a number of Hindu gods and Buddhist figures, which the signs explained co-existed through much of the Asian region.

This is Brahma, making several signs with his hands: his right hand is held up in a position of demon-averting and fear-warding, while his left hand is in a gift-giving position. (I know, it looks like he's making the horns to rockers, but that's what the sign said) Symbolism was a big thing in the art, the various hand positions had meaning.

Multi-armed deities were quite common as statue subjects. This was one of the more impressive examples, depicting two such deities hugging each other. I figured

haikujaguar would be interested!

I couldn't escape the feeling that it would be interesting if aliens had visited Earth in the past and their appearance had been recorded in religion, for example, in the form of this bird god, but sadly, it's more likely that it's some sort of symbolism. There were other examples of this, such as a lion-faced Vishnu routing a demon in the doorway-- the demon had been prophecied not to be killed outdoor nor indoor, nor by human, animal, or god, not at night or day. Here, there's a wikipage with that story.

Not all cultures share our squeamishness about the remains of the dead. In one culture (Himalayan if I recall right) they carve bones into beautiful instruments.

Here's an exhibit of daggers and krises. Some of the grips seemed rather odd, suggesting that they're to be held like guns or punch daggers.

I have completely forgotten what this thing is.

I forget the name of the culture these come from-- Indonesian? They're rod puppets, frequently used to illustrate these myths. Teaching while they entertain, as it were. This seems like a good reference.

dracosphnyx pointed this one out: "see, money does grow on trees." I don't recall if this was a funerary custom to ensure the dead would always have money ready to hand in the afterlife or some sort of luck-bringing statuary.

Overall we spent about four or five hours there. It was a pretty educational outing!