Bathing of the Buddha Festival

Hua Ziyou, Qing dynasty, 1833

Download1686 × 3400 px View on a wall Edit

Medium: Hanging scroll, ink and color on silk
Size: 108.9 × 54.2 cm (42 7/8 × 21 3/8 in.)
Museum: Art Institute of Chicago
Rights: CC0 — no rights reserved

This affable and remarkably zany cast of characters plays upon the festive atmosphere of an annual celebration held to commemorate the birth of the historical Buddha and his first shower by water-bearing dragons. Some of the disciples pictured flaunt pseudo-religious “miracles”: one opens his stomach to reveal the Buddha nature within and another magically creates a temple in mid-air.

Other disciples nonchalantly engage on superficially mundane activities that allude to Buddhist conduct, such as mending clothes and reading sutras. A lion, elephant, tiger, dragon, and phoenix are also in attendance; some serve as traditional vehicles of Buddhist deities, whereas others are more generally auspicious. Together, these personalities exude the vitality of a secularized but nonetheless sincere faith.

Text: Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0.