A RARE GOLD-GROUND PAINTING OF CHAKRASAMVARATIBET, 15TH CENTURY OR LATER38 x 331⁄2 in. (96.5 x 85.9 cm.)Details38 x 331⁄2 in. (96.5 x 85.9 cm.)ProvenanceThe John C. and Susan L. Huntington Collection, Columbus, Ohio, late 1960s.LiteratureJohn C. Huntington, The Technique of Tibetan Paintings, Studies in Conservation, vol. 15, no. 2, May, 1970, p. 129, fig. 11.‌Himalayan Art Resources, item no. 24842.The practice of Chakrasamvara is one of the main Tantras cycles of Tibetan Buddhism and the primary path to liberation relied upon by the famed eighty-four great Indian adepts to achieve their great attainments. He is primarily a meditational deity of the Highest Yoga Tantra classification, meaning that his practice has the potential to bring practitioners directly towards enlightenment within one lifetime. Chakrasamvara’s practice emphasizes the transformation of desire as a means towards achieving liberation from cyclic existence, thus, he is depicted embracing his consort Vajrayogini, with both her legs wrapped around his waist, symbolizing the union of the very subtle blissful mind and emptiness, the ultimate nature of all phenomena. This large and impressive Chakrasamvara Heruka is painted in the early Menri Style of Central Tibet in a style called serthang, literally meaning gold painting. The Menri style and tradition of Tibetan painting was founded by Mantangpa Manla Dondrub in the late fifteenth through the early sixteenth century and became the dominant painting tradition in central Tibet. The Menri style introduced a genre of painting in which solid ground colors are used to invoke specific emotions. Commonly, the artist lays down either gold, red or black as a base and applies a linear painting over the ground, abandoning solid forms in favor of intense movements of line that create both serene and wildly energetic compositions. The Menri-style solid-ground paintings have almost no additional color, although many artists vary the palette with light washes and heavily applied pigments, which introduce tonal variations and convey a stronger sense of volume. As the name serthang suggests, the entire ground of a painting is washed with a thick coating of gold and the deities are painted over the gold-ground in outline with dark red or brown pigments. Foregoing the typical Tibetan system, in which figures are laid out according to a grid, artists often work entirely by free hand on the solid ground, using motifs of ethereal landscapes, flowing garments, and whirling tongues of flame in a conscious effort to enhance the dramatic nature of the imagery. The eyes and mouths of the central figure are colored with a delicate rose-colored pigment, further accentuating the figure with extraordinary visual expressiveness. Surrounding the central Chakrasamvara figure, the mandala retinues include the two-armed Chakrasamvara, Vajravarahi, Mahakala, Jambhala and more. Compare the delicate shading of the facial features with a related gold-ground painting of Shadakshari Lokeshvara in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (acc. no.1985.390.3), dated to the fifteenth century. Compare, also, with two paintings in the collection of the Rubin Museum of Art, believed to have been from the same set, illustrated on Himalayan Art Resources, item nos. 90919 and 89148; depicting Hevajra and the Twenty-Third Throne Holder of Ngor Monastery, Sakya Lotsawa Jampai Dorje (1485-1533), the set cannot be dated to earlier than the first half of the sixteenth century. The present work can be closely related to both the Met example as well as the paintings in the Rubin Museum, and thus likely corresponds to the fifteenth or early sixteenth century. ---