These pictures were taken in a temple in Saigon. Which one? I didn't write the name down, and I can't remember.
Vietnam is full of temples and pagodas, some of them brand new, and the art isn't necessarily impressive in them all.
However, this temple bowled us over. A memorial service was going on while we were there, and the place was swarming with tourists.
One room on the side had a series of carved wooden panels, friezes depicting the fate of souls condemned to eternal punishment for their sins, and souls rewarded for good behavior - a theme that seemed more Christian to me than Buddhist.
An art historian could probably write a major monograph about them - perhaps it has already been done, since they are so impressive.
The temple is so crammed with beautiful and fascinating sculptures, that you can barely manage to concentrate on any individual work. We didn't see statues of men wearing hats like that anywhere else in Vietnam.
This picture is meant to illustrate the way the temple is crowded with statues. It was also crowded with tourists and worshipers, and I had to wait for a long time to get a clear picture of the statues. In another post I'll put in some of the pictures of the people.
I am sure that the syncretistic Buddhist/Hindu/Taoist/Confucian iconography of Vietnamese votive art has been studied extensively. Perhaps because the boundaries of religious conventions were not constrictive, the sculptors who made these statues had great freedom of expression.
Part of me says that these statues should all be removed to a museum, so that they can be preserved and documented and displayed properly, but another part of me says that it's wonderful they're still part of the active religious life of the country.
If this were a Christian relief, I would call it an archangel.
The man in the lower right corner is playing the drum for the memorial ceremony. He also gives you an idea of the monumental size of these statues, in a building that is not at all monumental in scale.
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