Buddha's Hand

 I am still reading "Handbook of Korean Art, Folk Paintings" by Yeolsu Yoon, translated by Wonjun Nam

and Yoon says that the image of Buddha's hand, the pulsugam, means plentiful offspring, long life and bountiful happiness. pg 17 

In the glossary at the back of the book he says that pulsugam (Buddha's hand cirtrus) is a symbol wealth.

I don't know what Buddha's hand citrus means so I looked up some images on Google. I don't think I've ever seen this fruit. Not even in the fancy grocery stores.


And I kind of wondered how this fruit is depicted in art. So I looked that up as well. I am taking these notes during January 2021 and while we are not in "lock down" due to COVID, libraries and museums are not easily accessible to me in Nelson County VA so I'm doing my best via Google. And frankly, that isn't too bad. Imagine 30 years ago, pre Google, pre public internet...

I found this image via the British Museum Images: https://www.bmimages.com/preview.asp?image=00711851001 

The image is a Chinese woodblock print from 1633 by Gao You. The image is for sale. I'm going to go ahead and screen shot it here unless suddenly I have a lot of visitors and then I will take it down. 

Buddha's hand wood block print, China 1633


I just spent several minutes on the Metropolitan Museum of Art's webpage. Searching on "Korea" brought back zero results. Searching on "China" brought back over nineteen thousand but if I narrow the search I can find some examples.

So this one, which is from 1945 and laid out in a very typical, western, sort of way. I don't know if this is representative of Chinese paintings at the time and whether or not it represents western influence.

buddha's hand fruit from metropolitan museum of art
This piece is listed as 18th century China. description "The Buddha’s-hand citron takes its common name from the shape of its fruit, which resembles the idealized fingers of the Buddha. Although the fruit is not edible, it has a strong fragrance and is used as an offering at the altar. Its name in Chinese, foshou, has almost the same sound as the words for “fortune” (fo) and “longevity” (shou), adding another layer of good wishes."  https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/44147


After seeing the carving I tried a Google search on "Buddha's hand citron carving" and found this exquisite example: Christies lot 1114 https://www.christies.com/lot/lot-a-pale-greenish-white-jade-carving-of-6189241/


and finally at the Smithsonian. I am super excited about this piece, this is what I was looking for.


It is titled "Bird, Fruit and Flowers" and from the Smithsonian website I cannot tell to what artist, country or time it is attributed. It is lovely. There are four images total that appear under "citron" in the Smithsonian Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery. https://asia.si.edu/subject/citron/ 

I would love to find more examples of Buddha' hand citron in Korean art work. Please, if you know any, leave a comment and maybe a link?




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Bats

Image
 I am reading "The Handbook of Korean Art, Folk Painting" by Yeolsu Yoon. I'm reading the English translation, translated by Wonjun Nam. I particularly enjoy learning about folk art because it is a peak into the culture. Yoon writes "bats were harbingers of happiness."  photo borrowed from the Zentner Collection https://www.zentnercollection.com/items/1251229/Antique-Korean-Chest-Bat-Handles As bats are nocturnal, Yoon writes that the Koreans believed that the bats were out at night bringing good fortune while the other animals were asleep. It was common to see cashboxes and rice chests with bat handles.              In this description about bats Yoon also mentions the Buddhist Swastika. What is a Buddhist Swastika? Well I don't know, so I Googled it and I came across this article: Buddhist monk raises awareness about the swastika's original meaning.   Nakagaki is trying to raise awareness about the swastika’s peaceful Sanskrit origins. His new book,  T
Read more

Taoism. What is it?

 on page 11 of "Handbook of Korean Art, Folk Paintings" by Yeol-su Yoon  "Muneyoshi Yanagi classified fold paintings into Chinese characters, auspicious events, traditional subjects, still-life scenes, and the three major religions, namely, Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism." Also referenced in "British Museum: Korean Art and Archeology" by Jane Portal published by Thames & Hudson. "The first group has Daoist origins, the rocks and pines being symbols of longevity, while the five peaks symbolize the five mountains of Korea. The mountains rise from the waves just as the mythical peaks of the Daoist immortals' island of Penglai (Korean: Pongae) arise from the eastern sea." So I didn't know what Taoism was and imagined it to be something of a shaman belief system with totems and spirit animals. To get me started on understanding what is Taoism, I downloaded "Tao Te Ching" by Lao Tzu, read by Stephen Mitchell. I listened to it
Read more