古代佛造像之美【阿弥陀佛泥塑】

阿弥陀佛泥塑，七世纪早期，大都会艺术博物馆收藏。从阿弥陀佛双臂的位置可看出，现已遗失的双手原来应是结禅定印。这尊阿弥陀佛像是用一种复杂的干漆夹苎技术制成的，通常先以木头为心，然后以泥塑成胎，再用浸满漆的麻布覆盖，最后再取出中心。这种技术在八世纪时从中国传到了日本。
Buddha, probably Amitabha
early 7th century
China
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 208
The position of the Buddha’s arms indicates that the hands were once held in a gesture of meditation and suggests that this sculpture represents Amitabha, a celestial Buddha who presides over his Western Paradise. Devotion to Amitabha, a major component of Chinese Buddhist practice since the sixth century, promotes the goal of rebirth in Amitabha’s Pure Land, where conditions are conducive to achieving spiritual understanding.

The sculpture was made using the dry-lacquer technique, in which a core (often made of wood) is covered with clay and then wrapped in layers of cloth that have been saturated with lacquer— a tree resin that hardens when exposed to oxygen. As many as seven or eight additional layers of lacquer might then be applied. In the eighth century, this technique spread from China to Japan, where it was used widely in the production of Buddhist sculptures.