Tibetan Thangka

A painting made to be rolled up and taken wherever it was needed.

This Tibetan thangka, The Buddha, comes from Tibet and dates to the 19th century or earlier, in pigment on cloth. Thangkas are scroll paintings used by Tibetan Buddhists as aids to teaching and meditation, and they could be hung in a monastery or a home, then rolled for travel. A red-skinned Buddha sits at the center within a halo, a bowl in his lap, in a patterned robe. Lotus leaves and clouds surround him, and smaller robed figures fill the corners and base. The surface looks creased and worn in places. Sixty inches high and 47 wide.

Five feet of attention, all of it directed inward.