I have always been drawn to dioramas. Either dioramas of partially three-dimensional, full-size replicas, such as seen in many museums of natural history, or, more particularly I love scale models of landscapes, nature scenes or cityscapes and human life, or even more abstract or artistic dioramas which include depictions of our ideas, dreams, and emotions.
There is something very alluring and captivating about seeing expressions of reality in miniature. Maybe some significant momentary deification of ourselves as we become so much larger than the little world windows we are looking into. However, I suggest the opposite, as I think we become more vulnerable trying to understand things from a macroscopic height, trying to discern the secrets of those tiny moments frozen, trapped or dead. Maybe, there is even something comforting about knowing that those tiny moments are suspended in time, free from change. The diorama never ages, it is timeless as we gaze either toothless from innocence or age.
The art of creating miniature figures and landscapes first made its appearance in the sixth century, in Japan. This art of miniature landscapes is called "Bonkei." The art of "Bonsai", the art of growing miniature trees in pots, and making them look like their natural counterparts, is thought to have its origins at around this same time period.
There are as many depictions and expressions of dioramas as there are cultures, as I believe the concept of the diorama can be traced even further back, perhaps into prehistoric times, when early man was painting on cave wall or carving effigy in bone, wood, or stone in scale.
In the following work that I have created, I am drawn onto the aged, vintage, antique and ancient; tiny remnants of the past, whose significance has decayed. These aged objects are small, and unlike paintings or large scale sculpture or art, can be lost to be seldom perused in old boxes or to layers of dust on shelves. To bring them and frame them in the context of diorama is to preserve and recycle them. They gain a new significance without losing the importance of their pasts.
This diorama shrine consists of an antique wood clock case in which sits an antique bamboo carved Arhat statue of the Buddhist disciple Maha kassapa. An Arhat, in Buddhism, signifies a spiritual practitioner who has realized certain high stages of attainment, and Maha kassapa (Japanese: Maha Kasho or Makakasho) or Kāśyapa was a brahman of Magadha, who became one of the principal disciples of Śākyamuni Buddha. Maha kassapa is one of the most revered of the Buddha's early disciples, foremost in ascetic practices.
This carved piece is highly detailed and depicts a dragon rising from the base of the mountain rock cliff on which Maha kassapa sits. The statue is framed on either side by metal urns filled with orange decorative dried flowers and adorned with bone-carved skulls, and two subtle black light posts, with beautiful orange LED lights, which can be turned on by engaging the switch on the leather bound battery case on the back of the diorama.
Behind the statue emanates the golden glow of a brass feng shui compass, serving as a radiant corona or aura when light naturally or by the LED lights (The feng shui compass, also called Lo-Pan, is used to define the Bagua of a home in order to access the following: deeper feng shui information about a site or a building, such as the favorable and unfavorable feng shui areas; specific feng shui areas of a site connected to specific areas of people's lives; or, the main feng shui element needed in a specific feng shui area). The feng shui compass consists of bands of concentric rings arranged around the magnetic needle. Lo means Everything and Pan means a Bowl; this can be interpreted as the feng shui compass being a container, or, more precisely, a tool to access the mysteries of the universe.
Here are some other pictures of diorama type art that I have created.
you can purchase these on our Etsy shop!
Thomas Doyle
One modern artist whose diorama work I particularly love is Thomas Doyle, whose work is so striking, poignant, and, often, disturbing, because of its careful, accurate, and yet surreal recreation of modern suburban reality painstakingly captured in true miniature. Once the mind’s eye begins to understand that it is seeing “real” homes, land, grass, hill, soil, and people, only then does the horror of the tiny reality set in. Because the specific individuality of the miniature is lost in the minute, the tiny and dangerous precariousness become our own.
Thomas Doyle links:
No comments:
Post a Comment