Himalayan Art in 108 Objects is an informative introductory survey of art and visual culture in the Himalayas (Tibet, Bhutan, China, India, Pakistan) connected temporally and spatially through dynamic cross-cultural and material exchanges, literatures, and religious beliefs, with Tibet and Buddhism at its center. Edited by Karl Debreczeny and Elena Pakhoutova, the over-sized 500-page hardcover tome is a part of The Rubin Museum of Art’s ‘Project Himalayan Art’¹², which was launched as an interdisciplinary platform focusing on the underdeveloped study of Himalayan art in academia and art institutions.

With an introductory essay by the editors, the content is presented in the form of short essays about one hundred and eight objects comprising Rubin’s collection and in situ architecture— and in the process, weaving additional objects and artefacts in the prose. These articles are laid out chronologically, beginning from the Indian Iron Age in 700 BCE till the twenty first century, with roughly two essays introducing objects originating in areas in present day Pakistan. Readers, ranging from students and emerging researchers to laypersons, find Himalayan expressions of religious devotion in the form of rock petroglyphs, shrines, and temples dedicated to Buddhism in India and Tibet, starting as early as 700 BCE to the sixth century. From seventh century onwards, many sculptural iconographic images of the Buddha spread wide in the vast Himalayan region, including Kashmir. A short study by Christian Luczanits formally analyzing the bronze and silver Buddha on the Cosmic Mountain (ca. 720) is useful in observing comparative similarities and differences between this Kashmir styled sculpture and several other well-studied images of Nepalese and Tibetan Buddhist iconography.¹⁴ Also presented are ninth century Buddhist artefacts such as manuscript paintings in the contested territories of Kashmir (present-day India) illustrating material, visual, and political links between Gilgit and Tibet.¹⁵

To illustrate cross cultural fertilization of religions in the same region, Luca Maria Olivieri and Anna Filigenzi write about “artistic phases” beginning in the end of the seventh century in Swat, where sculptures like the Bodhisattva Bhaishajyaraja show an amalgamation of Buddhist iconography with images associated with Hindu deities such as Vishnu— manifesting in the form of halo motifs, presence of animals.¹⁶ Also presented are ninth century Buddhist artefacts such as manuscript paintings in the contested territories of Kashmir (present-day India) illustrating material, visual, and political links between Gilgit and Tibet.¹⁷

Many articles bring out pluralist aesthetic and thematic elements within the study of Himalayan art, including imageries composed on mandalas and weaponry. Particularly fascinating are the vibrant indigenous mythologies across regions which serve as insights into spiritual beliefs and practices of the Himalayan population over the centuries. The multiplicity of styles in murals depict tantric imagery from Tibet as seen in the Nechung Monastery murals, expressive ritual dance masks from Bhutan, and Mongolian applique traditions— further, depicting deities and cosmological sagas continues into the twentieth century, as narrated in multiple essays.

The century-wise distribution of the essays aids readers in tracing stylistic alterations manifesting within the various regions of the Himalayas including an acceptance of modern forms like photography. For instance, Rob Linrothe writes about Rebkong’s (eastern Tibet) rare surviving regional contributions to Himalayan artistic expression in the form of cloth painting from the 1930s which faced a widespread destruction of Buddhist artefacts in the 1950s at the hands of Chinese forces.¹ Tibetan society also embraced modern expressions of visual culture such as photography, as indicated in records of central Tibetan elites in their official workplaces and at festivals. Here, Riga Shakya foregrounds the “Tibetan experience of British colonialism” in Himalayan photography in the twentieth century through a rare photo of the thirteenth Dalai Lama.²

Elsewhere in the publication, the subject of colonialism is rather not actively broached, a fact that the publication acknowledges as something the Project will enable “over time”. ³ This is unfortunate, considering the central aim of the Project is to underscore the multiplicity of linkages— material, social, political, and historical— overlooked in the study of Himalayan art, thus far. In their opening essay, Debreczeny and Pakhoutova consider objects from Tibet and Nepal exhibited in the West in the nineteenth century as “ethnographic curiosities”, ⁴ which limits their scope and leaves a desire to read more on the subject within the same essay— fortunately, the book lists additional reading resources.

Except for Donald S. Lopez Jr.’s essay on Tibet’s first modern artist Gendun Chopel⁵, there are no writings that introduce modern artists from Bhutan, India, Pakistan, or China; this may perhaps be the result of the publication centralizing Tibet, which forms the geographical center of cross-cultural exchange in the Himalayan region. A cursory insight is lent to artists and artisans from China, India and Nepal who continue to make devotional objects presently by combining traditional and nontraditional mediums like barley straw, bamboo, and animal skulls. The book closes by introducing contemporary Tibetan art forms through site specific and ephemeral Buddhist sculptures made of ice, indicating the contemporizing potential of Himalayan art.⁶ Due to the expansive range of objects (sculptures, paintings, scrolls, devotional and ritual objects, metalworks, textiles, architecture, and technologies among others), themes, and time periods covered in the form of scholarly writings, the publication is beneficial as a sourcebook for academic research and educational syllabi on Asian and/or Himalayan art history and visual cultures in South Asia’s undergraduate institutions offering liberal arts curricula.

Himalayan Art in 108 Objects is published by The Rubin Museum of Art in association with Scala Publishers, Inc (2023).

Title image: Saddle (serga) made for Yuthok Tashi Dhondup (1906-1983); Kham region, southeastern Tibet; ca. 1943-1947; copper alloy, iron, gold, turquoise, wood, leather, textile (silk, cotton); 181⁄2 x 24 x 17 in. (47 x 61 x 43.2 cm); © The Metropolitan Museum of Art, image source: Art Resource, NY