The Met's Asian Art Collection: Works That Changed the World

This page from a dispersed Bhagavata Purana manuscript — made in Malwa, central India — represents the height of Rajput painting's flat, vivid, almost heraldic style. The wrestlers are arranged in a composition of pure geometric energy; the crowd watches from above in tiers of colour. Mughal painting was the prestige tradition of the period, but Rajput painting like this has a directness and symbolic boldness all its own. The jewel-bright pigments show no deterioration after nearly four centuries.

Vietnam's ceramic tradition is less famous than China's and Japan's, but this 15th-century bottle demonstrates how Vietnamese potters absorbed Chinese blue-and-white techniques and transformed them into something wholly their own. The peony scroll is sinuous rather than formal; the birds are placed with a rhythmic confidence. The blue pigment has the characteristic slightly grey cast of Vietnamese cobalt. An object of the highest refinement from a tradition that still doesn't receive its due.

This gilded bronze from Tibet or Mongolia depicts Avalokiteshvara — the bodhisattva of compassion, one of Buddhism's most beloved figures — in his "royal ease" posture, one knee raised, one hand resting on the lotus throne. The gilding is intense and warm, the face serene to the point of otherworldliness. Tibetan Buddhist sculpture like this was not made to be admired; it was made as a focus for meditation, for devotion, for the transformation of consciousness. Standing before it, you feel that function even stripped of its original religious context.

Korean celadon is among the most coveted ceramics in the world, and this 13th-century box from the Goryeo dynasty represents the tradition at its most technically accomplished. The inlaid design — chrysanthemums, waterfowl, lotus leaves — was created using a technique unique to Korean potters: carving the design, filling the recesses with white or black slip, and firing. The jade-grey glaze has a depth and translucency that no other tradition has quite matched.

This Tibetan manuscript cover — protecting a text on the perfection of wisdom — is itself a work of illuminated perfection. The central panel depicts Prajnaparamita, the goddess embodying the wisdom of the sutras, flanked by two bodhisattvas. The gold on the dark background achieves a luminosity that manuscript painters worldwide sought and rarely attained so completely. The cover would have protected a text that was itself considered sacred; here the protection is also an act of devotion.

The ancient region of Gandhara — straddling modern Pakistan and Afghanistan — was the crossroads where Hellenistic, Persian, Indian, and Central Asian visual traditions met. This stone dvarapala (door guardian) shows the result: a figure that has the muscular physicality of a Hellenistic athlete but the frontal gravity of Indian sculpture, wearing armour that mixes Greek and Indian conventions. Gandharan art is the visual record of one of history's great cultural fusions.

Korean folk painting — minhwa — occupies a different register from court art: it is direct, humorous, exuberant, and painted by artists whose names history did not bother to record. This panel of squirrels in a grapevine is characteristic of the tradition's best: the squirrels are observed with genuine delight, the vine twists with organic energy, and the whole composition has a rhythmic joy that sophisticated court painting rarely achieved. It was made to hang in ordinary homes and give pleasure.

This Mongolian gilded bronze of Amitayus — the Buddha of Infinite Life — is one of the finest examples in the Met's collection of the Tibetan-influenced Buddhist art tradition that flourished under the Mongolian nobility. Amitayus is typically depicted holding a vessel of ambrosia, the elixir of longevity, and this figure does so with a grace that belies the formality of the iconographic requirements. The quality of the casting and gilding is extraordinary, suggesting a royal or monastery commission.

Pichhwai paintings are devotional cloths hung behind images of Krishna in the Nathdwara temple tradition of Rajasthan, India. This late 18th-century example, made in the Deccan region, depicts one of the major annual festivals — the Annakuta, or Festival of Cows — with the cows arranged in radiating concentric rows around a central shrine. The scale is theatrical, the repetition hypnotic, and the gold and jewel tones reach toward the divine. It is simultaneously religious document and extraordinary design.

This page from a dispersed Bhagavata Purana manuscript — made in Malwa, central India — represents the height of Rajput painting's flat, vivid, almost heraldic style. The wrestlers are arranged in a composition of pure geometric energy; the crowd watches from above in tiers of colour. Mughal painting was the prestige tradition of the period, but Rajput painting like this has a directness and symbolic boldness all its own. The jewel-bright pigments show no deterioration after nearly four centuries.

Vietnam's ceramic tradition is less famous than China's and Japan's, but this 15th-century bottle demonstrates how Vietnamese potters absorbed Chinese blue-and-white techniques and transformed them into something wholly their own. The peony scroll is sinuous rather than formal; the birds are placed with a rhythmic confidence. The blue pigment has the characteristic slightly grey cast of Vietnamese cobalt. An object of the highest refinement from a tradition that still doesn't receive its due.

This gilded bronze from Tibet or Mongolia depicts Avalokiteshvara — the bodhisattva of compassion, one of Buddhism's most beloved figures — in his "royal ease" posture, one knee raised, one hand resting on the lotus throne. The gilding is intense and warm, the face serene to the point of otherworldliness. Tibetan Buddhist sculpture like this was not made to be admired; it was made as a focus for meditation, for devotion, for the transformation of consciousness. Standing before it, you feel that function even stripped of its original religious context.

Korean celadon is among the most coveted ceramics in the world, and this 13th-century box from the Goryeo dynasty represents the tradition at its most technically accomplished. The inlaid design — chrysanthemums, waterfowl, lotus leaves — was created using a technique unique to Korean potters: carving the design, filling the recesses with white or black slip, and firing. The jade-grey glaze has a depth and translucency that no other tradition has quite matched.

This Tibetan manuscript cover — protecting a text on the perfection of wisdom — is itself a work of illuminated perfection. The central panel depicts Prajnaparamita, the goddess embodying the wisdom of the sutras, flanked by two bodhisattvas. The gold on the dark background achieves a luminosity that manuscript painters worldwide sought and rarely attained so completely. The cover would have protected a text that was itself considered sacred; here the protection is also an act of devotion.

The ancient region of Gandhara — straddling modern Pakistan and Afghanistan — was the crossroads where Hellenistic, Persian, Indian, and Central Asian visual traditions met. This stone dvarapala (door guardian) shows the result: a figure that has the muscular physicality of a Hellenistic athlete but the frontal gravity of Indian sculpture, wearing armour that mixes Greek and Indian conventions. Gandharan art is the visual record of one of history's great cultural fusions.

Korean folk painting — minhwa — occupies a different register from court art: it is direct, humorous, exuberant, and painted by artists whose names history did not bother to record. This panel of squirrels in a grapevine is characteristic of the tradition's best: the squirrels are observed with genuine delight, the vine twists with organic energy, and the whole composition has a rhythmic joy that sophisticated court painting rarely achieved. It was made to hang in ordinary homes and give pleasure.

This Mongolian gilded bronze of Amitayus — the Buddha of Infinite Life — is one of the finest examples in the Met's collection of the Tibetan-influenced Buddhist art tradition that flourished under the Mongolian nobility. Amitayus is typically depicted holding a vessel of ambrosia, the elixir of longevity, and this figure does so with a grace that belies the formality of the iconographic requirements. The quality of the casting and gilding is extraordinary, suggesting a royal or monastery commission.

Pichhwai paintings are devotional cloths hung behind images of Krishna in the Nathdwara temple tradition of Rajasthan, India. This late 18th-century example, made in the Deccan region, depicts one of the major annual festivals — the Annakuta, or Festival of Cows — with the cows arranged in radiating concentric rows around a central shrine. The scale is theatrical, the repetition hypnotic, and the gold and jewel tones reach toward the divine. It is simultaneously religious document and extraordinary design.