Heart Sutra
2002
The Heart Sutra, a popular Buddhist text that summarizes Buddha’s wisdom, is incised onto this ceramic sculpture’s surface. The artist inscribed Chinese characters for the sutra text and added a final line of a rhythmic Buddhist chant (“Ah jae ah jae ba ra sa ah jae”) in Hangul, the Korean alphabet. A result of Yoon Kwang-cho’s devotion in Buddhist practice, the object emulates 16th-century Buncheong ware, which typically has a coarse gray body decorated with white slip.
Punchong; stoneware with white slip, gold
20 1/2 x 19 5/8 x 9 in. (52.1 x 49.8 x 22.9 cm)
The Asian Art Council, Frank S. Bayley III, Jacqueline MacRae, Everett and Andrea Paup, Griffith and Patricia Way, B. Joan Christoffersen, Maxine Gorton-Stewart, Kazuhiro Kawasaki, John Pehrson, Joanne Algarin, Nancy D. Haigwood, Estelle Wertheimer, and the Margaret E. Fuller Purchase Fund
2005.111
Photo: Paul Macapia
