Melissa R Kerin | Washington and Lee University (original) (raw)

Books by Melissa R Kerin

Art and Devotion at a Buddhist Temple in the Indian Himalaya, 2015

This book investigates the complex devotional, political, and artistic histories of a set of late... more This book investigates the complex devotional, political, and artistic histories of a set of late-sixteenth-century wall paintings at the Rgya ’phags pa (Gyapagpa) temple in Nako, a village in India’s Himachal Pradesh state. The paintings that form the focus of this book have only occasionally been included in surveys of the region, but have never received any rigorous academic analysis. By contrast, coeval paintings at courtly and religious centers such as Tsaparang and Tabo have been studied, to varying degrees, for their art historical and religious significance. There are several notable factors contributing to the omission of the Gyapagpa wall paintings from the academic record. The first is that these paintings were not the result of grand courtly patronage. Consequently, little historical evidence about the paintings, such as inscriptions or chronicles, survives. Moreover, the materials and craftsmanship of these paintings pales in comparison to other neighboring sites with strong royal affiliations. Lastly, these paintings were produced at a time when Nako was located on the margins of both mainstream political and religious activity. Being at these margins has very real consequences; chief among these is that there is not a great deal of material or textual evidence for primary source material or comparanda.
What, then, could these unknown, faded, and marginal paintings have to teach us? This book will demonstrate that these paintings are among the rarest sources of historical documentation for this area and period, as well as for a specific type of Tibetan Buddhism practiced in Kinnaur during the sixteenth century. Consequently, analysis of this overlooked temple and its paintings has provided significant insights into localized cultural and religious practices of Nako, as well as larger patterns of regional and transregional interchange among western Himalayan Buddhist centers during the late medieval period. Indeed, this book elucidates how the Gyapagpa paintings are indices of important political, artistic, and religious developments that are critical to accurately contouring the hitherto elusive socio-political complexion of India’s western Himalayan region, a region often omitted from Indian histories. More generally, this project serves to broaden and nuance interdisciplinary discourses concerning the complex relationships between material culture and identity formation, ideology, and devotional praxis.

Papers by Melissa R Kerin

This book investigates the complex devotional, political, and artistic histories of a set of late... more This book investigates the complex devotional, political, and artistic histories of a set of late-sixteenth-century wall paintings at the Rgya ’phags pa (Gyapagpa) temple in Nako, a village in India’s Himachal Pradesh state. The paintings that form the focus of this book have only occasionally been included in surveys of the region, but have never received any rigorous academic analysis. By contrast, coeval paintings at courtly and religious centers such as Tsaparang and Tabo have been studied, to varying degrees, for their art historical and religious significance. There are several notable factors contributing to the omission of the Gyapagpa wall paintings from the academic record. The first is that these paintings were not the result of grand courtly patronage. Consequently, little historical evidence about the paintings, such as inscriptions or chronicles, survives. Moreover, the materials and craftsmanship of these paintings pales in comparison to other neighboring sites with strong royal affiliations. Lastly, these paintings were produced at a time when Nako was located on the margins of both mainstream political and religious activity. Being at these margins has very real consequences; chief among these is that there is not a great deal of material or textual evidence for primary source material or comparanda. What, then, could these unknown, faded, and marginal paintings have to teach us? This book will demonstrate that these paintings are among the rarest sources of historical documentation for this area and period, as well as for a specific type of Tibetan Buddhism practiced in Kinnaur during the sixteenth century. Consequently, analysis of this overlooked temple and its paintings has provided significant insights into localized cultural and religious practices of Nako, as well as larger patterns of regional and transregional interchange among western Himalayan Buddhist centers during the late medieval period. Indeed, this book elucidates how the Gyapagpa paintings are indices of important political, artistic, and religious developments that are critical to accurately contouring the hitherto elusive socio-political complexion of India’s western Himalayan region, a region often omitted from Indian histories. More generally, this project serves to broaden and nuance interdisciplinary discourses concerning the complex relationships between material culture and identity formation, ideology, and devotional praxis.

Collecting Paradise: Buddhist Art of Kashmir and Its Legacies

At the heart of this stylistic analysis is a discussion of the ways artists of the fifteenth–seve... more At the heart of this stylistic analysis is a discussion of the ways artists of the fifteenth–seventeenth centuries intentionally reprised visual vocabularies—especially figural forms, garment types, and decorative motifs—of Kashmiri-inspired styles. As will become evident in this essay, there is evidence that these artists looked to eleventh-century western Himalayan iterations of Kashmiri art. Such Kashmiri-based styles were in wide circulation under the patronage of the Purhang-Guge monk-king, Ye shes ’Od (959–1040), and his family who lavishly patronized Buddhist sites such as Tabo’s Dukhang temple (996 and renovation in 1042), which was elaborately painted in several “groups” or idioms of Kashmiri painting. For reasons that will be discussed later in the essay, the painters of the fifteenth-century Guge kingdom faithfully emulated, sometimes in painstaking detail, these Kashmiri-informed painting styles of the eleventh century. But the style is not defined only by emulation. By the sixteenth century, artists of the Ngari painting tradition were less interested in steadfastly reviving an older Kashmiri style. This later generation of artists interpreted rather than emulated the established visual vocabulary. In so doing, they effectively created multiple idiomatic permutations reflective of a wider geographic scope. Thus, while the Ngari painting tradition begins as a renascent style at the Guge court in the fifteenth century, by the middle of the sixteenth century it develops into a transregional style with multiple expressions found throughout the Western Himalaya.

Art of Merit: Studies in Buddhist Art and its Conservation, 2014

NAKO: Research and Conservation in the Western Himalayas, 2016

Nako is best known for its lustrous, gold impasto wall paintings of the 12 th century, which are ... more Nako is best known for its lustrous, gold impasto wall paintings of the 12 th century, which are housed in temples located in the village's religious compound (ig. 110). 1 As has already been discussed in this volume, these large-scale compositions, executed in a Kashmiri-derived style, feature intricately detailed paintings depicting complex mandala conigurations. Given their splendour, it is easy to understand how these murals, located in two of the four tem-ples constituting Nako's religious compound, eclipse the other painting programmes at the site. Though lesser known, Nako's post-15 th -century wall paintings offer paramount histori-cal information about the village's shifting religious practices, as well as furnish insights into stylistic developments and changes from the 16 th to the 18 th century. This paper focuses on material from this period, which has otherwise gone unnoticed. Central to this discussion are the post-15 th -century painting programmes in three of the four temples from Nako's religious compound: Gyaphagpa (rGya 'phags pa), Karchung (dKar chung), and Lotsawa (Lo tsa ba). 2 As each temple has in situ wall paintings executed in an idiom of the Ngari (mNga' ri) paint-ing tradition of the late Medieval period, this analysis provides a much-needed survey of the style's idiomatic spectrum. This however, is not the only post-15 th -century style used. Indeed, there is a c. 18 th -century painting style used in parts of the Lotsawa and Karchung Temple, which will also be discussed. These paintings, and more speciically the iconographic infor-mation contained within, demonstrates Nako's long-term interest in the Kagyu (bKa' rgyud) Tradition, and more speciically in the Drigung ('Bri gung) School. 2.1. Fifteenth-Century Wall Paintings of Nako's Religious Compound

This essay stems from our concern that art historians still conceive of “The” Survey in terms tha... more This essay stems from our concern that art historians still conceive of “The” Survey in terms that privilege Western artistic traditions. In this article, we offer an alternative that we designate as the multi-survey model (MSM) or approach. “The survey” becomes “the surveys” that introduce students to Western arts and the art forms of often underrepresented regions. Twenty-one percent of the schools surveyed in our peer review employ similar models, and yet the MSM has yet to attract critical scholarly attention. This essay addresses a void in present scholarship and elaborates upon three main goals of the MSM, all of which help to de-center the survey from Western origins and to challenge the discourse that positions Western art as normative. First, the MSM creates opportunities for students to delve into the particularities of a specific region and its narratives of art, which often exist outside Western art historical discourse. Second, the MSM produces a productive dialogue between the Western survey and the regional surveys of Africa, the Americas, Asia, the Middle East, Pacific Cultures, and other regions. Last, students investigate agency of representation, and in particular how the arts of Asia and the Americas are presented in the Western world. The MSM deliberately concedes global coverage in favor of capitalizing upon the strengths of faculty members in small art history departments. The MSM ensures that students engage with a variety of cultural perspectives early in their art history careers and bolsters our efforts to create a more globally aware citizenry at the college level.

Orientations, 2007

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Journal of the American Oriental Society, 2004

A set of sixteenth-century wall paintings in a Buddhist temple in the Tibetan cultural zone of no... more A set of sixteenth-century wall paintings in a Buddhist temple in the Tibetan cultural zone of northwest India's Kinnaur (Khu nu) District forms the focus of this project. More than simply representations of Buddhist devotional subject matter, these paintings in the Rgya 'phags pa ...

… Women: Tradition, Revision, Renewal. Boston: Wisdom, Jan 1, 2000

Art and Devotion at a Buddhist Temple in the Indian Himalaya, 2015

This book investigates the complex devotional, political, and artistic histories of a set of late... more This book investigates the complex devotional, political, and artistic histories of a set of late-sixteenth-century wall paintings at the Rgya ’phags pa (Gyapagpa) temple in Nako, a village in India’s Himachal Pradesh state. The paintings that form the focus of this book have only occasionally been included in surveys of the region, but have never received any rigorous academic analysis. By contrast, coeval paintings at courtly and religious centers such as Tsaparang and Tabo have been studied, to varying degrees, for their art historical and religious significance. There are several notable factors contributing to the omission of the Gyapagpa wall paintings from the academic record. The first is that these paintings were not the result of grand courtly patronage. Consequently, little historical evidence about the paintings, such as inscriptions or chronicles, survives. Moreover, the materials and craftsmanship of these paintings pales in comparison to other neighboring sites with strong royal affiliations. Lastly, these paintings were produced at a time when Nako was located on the margins of both mainstream political and religious activity. Being at these margins has very real consequences; chief among these is that there is not a great deal of material or textual evidence for primary source material or comparanda.
What, then, could these unknown, faded, and marginal paintings have to teach us? This book will demonstrate that these paintings are among the rarest sources of historical documentation for this area and period, as well as for a specific type of Tibetan Buddhism practiced in Kinnaur during the sixteenth century. Consequently, analysis of this overlooked temple and its paintings has provided significant insights into localized cultural and religious practices of Nako, as well as larger patterns of regional and transregional interchange among western Himalayan Buddhist centers during the late medieval period. Indeed, this book elucidates how the Gyapagpa paintings are indices of important political, artistic, and religious developments that are critical to accurately contouring the hitherto elusive socio-political complexion of India’s western Himalayan region, a region often omitted from Indian histories. More generally, this project serves to broaden and nuance interdisciplinary discourses concerning the complex relationships between material culture and identity formation, ideology, and devotional praxis.

This book investigates the complex devotional, political, and artistic histories of a set of late... more This book investigates the complex devotional, political, and artistic histories of a set of late-sixteenth-century wall paintings at the Rgya ’phags pa (Gyapagpa) temple in Nako, a village in India’s Himachal Pradesh state. The paintings that form the focus of this book have only occasionally been included in surveys of the region, but have never received any rigorous academic analysis. By contrast, coeval paintings at courtly and religious centers such as Tsaparang and Tabo have been studied, to varying degrees, for their art historical and religious significance. There are several notable factors contributing to the omission of the Gyapagpa wall paintings from the academic record. The first is that these paintings were not the result of grand courtly patronage. Consequently, little historical evidence about the paintings, such as inscriptions or chronicles, survives. Moreover, the materials and craftsmanship of these paintings pales in comparison to other neighboring sites with strong royal affiliations. Lastly, these paintings were produced at a time when Nako was located on the margins of both mainstream political and religious activity. Being at these margins has very real consequences; chief among these is that there is not a great deal of material or textual evidence for primary source material or comparanda. What, then, could these unknown, faded, and marginal paintings have to teach us? This book will demonstrate that these paintings are among the rarest sources of historical documentation for this area and period, as well as for a specific type of Tibetan Buddhism practiced in Kinnaur during the sixteenth century. Consequently, analysis of this overlooked temple and its paintings has provided significant insights into localized cultural and religious practices of Nako, as well as larger patterns of regional and transregional interchange among western Himalayan Buddhist centers during the late medieval period. Indeed, this book elucidates how the Gyapagpa paintings are indices of important political, artistic, and religious developments that are critical to accurately contouring the hitherto elusive socio-political complexion of India’s western Himalayan region, a region often omitted from Indian histories. More generally, this project serves to broaden and nuance interdisciplinary discourses concerning the complex relationships between material culture and identity formation, ideology, and devotional praxis.

Collecting Paradise: Buddhist Art of Kashmir and Its Legacies

At the heart of this stylistic analysis is a discussion of the ways artists of the fifteenth–seve... more At the heart of this stylistic analysis is a discussion of the ways artists of the fifteenth–seventeenth centuries intentionally reprised visual vocabularies—especially figural forms, garment types, and decorative motifs—of Kashmiri-inspired styles. As will become evident in this essay, there is evidence that these artists looked to eleventh-century western Himalayan iterations of Kashmiri art. Such Kashmiri-based styles were in wide circulation under the patronage of the Purhang-Guge monk-king, Ye shes ’Od (959–1040), and his family who lavishly patronized Buddhist sites such as Tabo’s Dukhang temple (996 and renovation in 1042), which was elaborately painted in several “groups” or idioms of Kashmiri painting. For reasons that will be discussed later in the essay, the painters of the fifteenth-century Guge kingdom faithfully emulated, sometimes in painstaking detail, these Kashmiri-informed painting styles of the eleventh century. But the style is not defined only by emulation. By the sixteenth century, artists of the Ngari painting tradition were less interested in steadfastly reviving an older Kashmiri style. This later generation of artists interpreted rather than emulated the established visual vocabulary. In so doing, they effectively created multiple idiomatic permutations reflective of a wider geographic scope. Thus, while the Ngari painting tradition begins as a renascent style at the Guge court in the fifteenth century, by the middle of the sixteenth century it develops into a transregional style with multiple expressions found throughout the Western Himalaya.

Art of Merit: Studies in Buddhist Art and its Conservation, 2014

NAKO: Research and Conservation in the Western Himalayas, 2016

Nako is best known for its lustrous, gold impasto wall paintings of the 12 th century, which are ... more Nako is best known for its lustrous, gold impasto wall paintings of the 12 th century, which are housed in temples located in the village's religious compound (ig. 110). 1 As has already been discussed in this volume, these large-scale compositions, executed in a Kashmiri-derived style, feature intricately detailed paintings depicting complex mandala conigurations. Given their splendour, it is easy to understand how these murals, located in two of the four tem-ples constituting Nako's religious compound, eclipse the other painting programmes at the site. Though lesser known, Nako's post-15 th -century wall paintings offer paramount histori-cal information about the village's shifting religious practices, as well as furnish insights into stylistic developments and changes from the 16 th to the 18 th century. This paper focuses on material from this period, which has otherwise gone unnoticed. Central to this discussion are the post-15 th -century painting programmes in three of the four temples from Nako's religious compound: Gyaphagpa (rGya 'phags pa), Karchung (dKar chung), and Lotsawa (Lo tsa ba). 2 As each temple has in situ wall paintings executed in an idiom of the Ngari (mNga' ri) paint-ing tradition of the late Medieval period, this analysis provides a much-needed survey of the style's idiomatic spectrum. This however, is not the only post-15 th -century style used. Indeed, there is a c. 18 th -century painting style used in parts of the Lotsawa and Karchung Temple, which will also be discussed. These paintings, and more speciically the iconographic infor-mation contained within, demonstrates Nako's long-term interest in the Kagyu (bKa' rgyud) Tradition, and more speciically in the Drigung ('Bri gung) School. 2.1. Fifteenth-Century Wall Paintings of Nako's Religious Compound

This essay stems from our concern that art historians still conceive of “The” Survey in terms tha... more This essay stems from our concern that art historians still conceive of “The” Survey in terms that privilege Western artistic traditions. In this article, we offer an alternative that we designate as the multi-survey model (MSM) or approach. “The survey” becomes “the surveys” that introduce students to Western arts and the art forms of often underrepresented regions. Twenty-one percent of the schools surveyed in our peer review employ similar models, and yet the MSM has yet to attract critical scholarly attention. This essay addresses a void in present scholarship and elaborates upon three main goals of the MSM, all of which help to de-center the survey from Western origins and to challenge the discourse that positions Western art as normative. First, the MSM creates opportunities for students to delve into the particularities of a specific region and its narratives of art, which often exist outside Western art historical discourse. Second, the MSM produces a productive dialogue between the Western survey and the regional surveys of Africa, the Americas, Asia, the Middle East, Pacific Cultures, and other regions. Last, students investigate agency of representation, and in particular how the arts of Asia and the Americas are presented in the Western world. The MSM deliberately concedes global coverage in favor of capitalizing upon the strengths of faculty members in small art history departments. The MSM ensures that students engage with a variety of cultural perspectives early in their art history careers and bolsters our efforts to create a more globally aware citizenry at the college level.

Orientations, 2007

RefDoc Bienvenue - Welcome. Refdoc est un service / is powered by. ...

Journal of the American Oriental Society, 2004

A set of sixteenth-century wall paintings in a Buddhist temple in the Tibetan cultural zone of no... more A set of sixteenth-century wall paintings in a Buddhist temple in the Tibetan cultural zone of northwest India's Kinnaur (Khu nu) District forms the focus of this project. More than simply representations of Buddhist devotional subject matter, these paintings in the Rgya 'phags pa ...

… Women: Tradition, Revision, Renewal. Boston: Wisdom, Jan 1, 2000