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Four seated Masters

Unknown

1450

unspecified

From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art

Renaissance Renaissance Religious Central Tibet

Dominant colour

Four seated Masters is a 1450 unspecified by Unknown, a Renaissance work, depicting Central Tibet, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.

Who painted this?: Unknown
When & what style?: 1450 · Renaissance
Where can I see it?: Cleveland Museum of Art

About this work

You see four monks in red robes sitting on the ground, each holding a book or scroll. This painting is part of a set made at Ngor Monastery in Tibet around 1450. It shows the teachers who passed down a special Buddhist text. The style mixes Tibetan and Nepalese art—flat shapes, bright colors, and fine, swirling lines. To see more like it, look up central tibet, ngor monastery.

The story of this work

Overview

Founders and prominent masters of the Sakya order of Buddhism in Tibet are featured in this painting as part of the lineage of teachers who transmitted knowledge of their fundamental text, the Hevajra Tantra . It is part of a series of paintings made at one of the main Sakya monastic centers, which had close ties with Nepal. This Tibetan artwork includes Nepalese features, such as the delicate, decorative quality of the painting, its two-dimensionality, the exaggerated curvature of the upper eyelid, and the filling of all spaces with scrollwork.

Read the full account in the museum source.