A Golden Figure among a Thousand

Viewing notes

A viewer's written impression — not a buyer review or first-hand record

This large polychrome group centres on a gold-robed monk-form figure. Crowned, with a radiant sunburst halo behind his head, he holds a white ringed staff upright in his right hand, his left resting on his knee, seated at ease upon an enormous white cloud above a dark rock base. Behind him, three wall-like screens rise, packed row upon row with hundreds upon hundreds of tiny standing figures in orange, gold and grey — a three-dimensional curtain. At each side stands an attendant in plain white: one holding a small box, the other a white-bearded elder leaning on a staff, their plainness setting off the central gold. From afar it is the sheer number that stuns; up close, it is the clarity of the hierarchy. Made to be displayed as a whole, as the principal scene of a shrine or an exhibition hall, it fixes an entire space at a single glance.