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Besides the APART project I am currently also working on the following subjects (older topics are mentioned last):
Early Buddhist Mandalas
Early Drigung painting
One result of the study of the Eight Great Siddhas in early Tibetan painting was the discovery of their distinctiv and consistent representations of the Drigungpa ('Bri-gung-pa) school. Further, it turned out that when a Drigungpa painting focuses on the footprints of a teacher or a teacher's portrait the surrounding deities follow a similar closely related compositional concepts. A detailed study of these and of the deities added or removed from the composition allows to extrapolate a development within Early Drigungpa painting for this type of representation. As yet identified paintings date from the early 13th century to the mid 14th century and include thangkas as well as in situ murals.
Eight Great Siddhas
While the importance of the Eight Great Siddhas is generally acknowledged surprisingly little is known about their earliest representations. Also their origin and their meaning is not yet satisfactorily clarified. My study focuses on the 13th and 14th century representations of the eight siddhas taking inscribed depictions as point of departure. Following the iconography of the siddhas and their position within the group and the whole composition the study differentiates their representation within different schools. It also tries to clarify if the visual evidence supports the view that the eight great siddhas became important because they are depicted in the charnel grounds of a mandala or vice versa.
- The Eight Great Siddhas in Early Tibetan Painting from c. 1200 to c. 1350. In Holy Madness. Portraits of Tantric Siddhas, edited by R. N. Linrothe. New York: Rubin Museum of Art.
Maitreya in Gandhara
This topic, the depictions of the Bodhisattva Maitreya in Gandharan art, was taken up again in October 2000 due to the untimely death of Prof Maurizio Taddei, who also supervised my theses, in February 2000. I had worked on this topic with Taddei at an early stage of my studies.
Although frequently discussed, relatively little precise information can be found on the role of Maitreya in Gandhara. Nevertheless, even the scarce information available, when considered as part of the general development towards Mahayana Buddhism, provides a very differentiated background for the Gandharan iconography of this Bodhisattva. In addition, the more developed cults of Maitreya in Central Asia and China, roughly contemporary with later Kushana art or slightly later, provide further clues for possible roles of Maitreya in Northwest India during the Kushana period.
In general, this wider viewpoint has proved fruitful with regard to determining dates for certain inventions in Buddhist beliefs that are directly reflected in the function and depictions of Maitreya.
A first result of this research is currently in press:
Tucci Thangka
For several years I have been working on one third (28) of the catalogue entries for an exhibition of the thangkas in the Tucci collection at the Museo Nazionale d’Arte Orientale (MNAOr) in Rome. Deborah E. Klimburg-Salter and Eva Allinger are responsible for the other two thirds of the entries, with Klimburg-Salter providing additional introductory chapters.
The main topics of my entries to the catalogue are Padmasambhava, protective deities, and mandalas, among them the most complex configurations of the collection. Therefore I am mainly focusing on the questions how the respective thangka is to be read and on identifying its different iconographical elements and, if possible, their relationship.
My work on the entries was largely concluded by Oktober 2001. However, as far as I am informed, the publication of the catalogue has been at a standstill since then.
Page last updated: 03.05.2009
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