Kalmyk Icons from the Collection of the National Museum of Art named after B. and V. Khanenko: to the Question of Traditions and Innovations

Abstract

The article is devoted to the cultural analysis of the tradition in the study of fine arts of Buddhism. The subject of the research are Buddhist artifacts from the collection of the Kiev Museum of Western and Oriental Art named after B. and B. Khanenko which are considered as a cultural heritage of Kalmykia. It was formed during the interaction of tradition and innovation. The art shows historical destiny of the iconographic canon in the artistic culture of Northern Buddhism. Traditional psychogenetic particular worldview, ceremonial culture and folklore are projected in the iconography, defining “local” nature of art. The analysis of the Kalmyk artistic tradition revealed visible local features of graphic images of iconographic interpretation. Selectivity of pantheon deities observed in particular images of Kiev collection is explained by the history of the people who lived beyond the bounds of their ethnic homeland. It is a local variant of the Central Asian pantheon, where archaic traces of nomadic mythology preserved in a different cultural environment can be found.  Inscriptions in Old Kalmyk todo bichig script (usually on the left border of the painting) and in Cyrillic script with yat on the lower edge of the images of Amitābha Buddha, Green Tārā Bodhisattva and Bhaisajyaguru Buddha are the specific features of the described religious paintings. Vertical ligatured todo bichig script (Kalmyk: Амидава, Отчи бурхн, Ноhан дәрк) written in ink faded to pale brown is the indisputable defining feature of Kalmyk painting. Kalmyk art developed gradually both in separate formal details of paintings and in general aesthetic interpretation of images. Canonization of deities involves introduction of border scenes, symbolic attributes and accented symmetrical front compositions into the painting. On the whole, concise symmetrical scenes with unelaborated plot which tend to emphasize main image’s personification that is the center of a religious painting and believers’ direct object of worship prevail in Old Kalmyk art.