Commentary: From `Late 20th Century' to `11th-12th Century': The Faking of Burmese Art History

By Claudine Bautze-Picron

Buddha images of various styles and a lotus mandala in the making

For over two centuries, there has been a community of artists, wood-carvers, sculptors and bronze-casters settled in the southern suburbs of Mandalay, on the road to Amarapura and close to the Mahamuni compound. Among them, the bronze-casters produce images of the Buddha which are sold throughout Burma for temples and home altars. Large images, such as a gong held by two divine creatures which stands in a large room behind Mahamuni temple, may also be commissioned. These artists are able to cast images in any style and infuse them with their own creative touches. For example, they do not copy known bronzes of the Pagan period, so that one can immediately identify the original behind the copy. Instead, elements which depart from the known stylistic and iconographic corpus in Burma are introduced. Moreover, images are cast based on 11th and 12th century stone stelae from Eastern India, thus introducing a dimension hitherto unknown in art history.

In the last decade, large numbers of bronzes reflecting the `Pagan-period' style have been produced in the ateliers of the city. Even established art historians have been fooled by their high plastic level. Donald Stadtner, who had previously viewed them as appartenant to the Pagan period, has reconsidered his views and redated them to a more recent period (`Pagan Bronzes: Fresh Observations', in The Art of Burma: New Studies, Mumbai, 1999, pp. 53-64). As a matter of fact, most of these bronzes are being sold in the European and American art markets through dealers based in London and New York, and even through internet from Singapore and Northwood! Recently, I had the opportunity of meeting these artists, who proudly showed me photos of their past work. A visit to their ateliers reveals how their ability goes far beyond the production of `Pagan style' images; they also cast in European, Indian, Thai, Pyu and Arakan styles. It is part of their training to be able to produce images in any style (Fig. 1). They draw inspiration from images preserved in the Pagan Museum or seen on Pagan monuments. They also have at their disposal publications or photocopies of books related to the art of Buddhism, like Leaves from the Bodhi Tree (Susan and John Huntington, Seattle and London, 1989) or pages from auction catalogues. They can, by referring to small reproduced images, produce large and elaborated ones. And thus, by looking at a small andagu slab with a maximum height of twenty centimetres, they can cast an image nearly one metre in height. As seen in Figure 2, the various types of Buddha images (see The Art of Burma: New Studies, frontispiece) and lotus mandalas, which are based on originals preserved in the Pagan Museum, are produced (see ibid., fig. 8 and G.H. Luce, Old Burma-Early Pagan, vol. 3, New York, 1970, pl. 427). Figures 3 and 4 also illustrate parts of a bronze which will echo, when finished, two similar images (see Luce, pls 435b and 436a). There is also a group of unusual Pagan-style images based on the life of Buddha modelled on andagu slabs.

Other bronzes include depictions of Surya the Hindu Sun god, bodhisattvas, the Buddha's birth and the Enlightenment. Although found in Burma, some of these bronzes are not even sold as Burmese, but are said to be from eastern India! The point is that these images are Burmese, and can only be said to have borrowed the general frame of their iconography from India. For example, the Surya image, which is on the New York art market, is based on an image in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Similarly, when Stadtner asked the artist for the model of a large crowned Buddha he had published (see Stadtner, op. cit., fig. 1), he was shown a photo of a Pala stone piece in the same museum. However, in a departure from the known process of stylistic evolution, the artists introduce their own traditions in decoration and iconography. These can be seen in the floral decorative style, noticed in places such as the borders and the crown. This reminds us that Mandalay is also a city of skilled wood-carvers. The artists are not exclusively trained in one medium; many are not only bronze casters but wood-carvers and sculptors as well.

A number of factors favoured the emergence of such a situation. Firstly, the limited number of genuine known Pagan bronzes mostly depict the Buddha alone, standing or seated. Their rarity is probably due to the fact that Pagan artists were usually architects or sculptors, rather than bronze-casters. Consequently, the new types of bronzes from Mandalay seem to fill an apparent gap in stylistic development. It was precisely because of their innovative features, as argued by an art dealer (to me some years ago), that doubts could only arise because such images had remained unknown until now. Of course they were unknown: they simply did not exist! Secondly, the Burmese government had banned the export of bronze replicas of images; as a direct consequence, images leave the country through unofficial channels. It is extremely tempting, once they have crossed the Thai border, to provide them with a historical past which they never had and would never have acquired if the authorities had allowed their export. As a matter of fact, and this is my third point, some art-dealers are nice story-tellers: an object, made only several months or years ago, suddenly becomes 800 years old! A history is created to justify why such images should have remained unknown until their very recent discovery. I was told by another art dealer that these bronzes had been hidden in the depths of a cave and were the only objects to survive a fire. I must confess that I like the tale; it makes one feel like a child who discovers a treasure trove which has been hidden from human eyes for centuries. When I actually saw the `secret treasure', I should probably have had the feeling of encountering the unknown - what Man has been searching for since the beginning of history, whenever he enters a cave. However, as an art historian, I did not see an extraordinary Pagan-style bronze before my eyes but a copy which was a composite of various originals, not all of which were produced in a Burmese context. At this point, it is evidently necessary for some art dealers to disregard the expertise of art historians even though the latter can tell that the bronzes are not what they are supposed to be.

The tale of its origins is vital if the object is not to have the mere value of its metal; it is its increased historical value which causes the happiness of dealers. An artist is paid for his work, basically the value of the metal which has been melted down. When his work is complete, the images are transported to Thailand where they will be sold to European and American dealers. The conditions of the border crossing results in the extreme aging of these images, and hence, an increase of their commercial value! The success of such a venture would not be complete if the sole market was Asia. It is the European and American markets which are aimed at since they offer the greatest possibility of making a profit. In the West, images are channelled through art dealers, advertising on the internet and auction houses. For the chronology of art history, the result is disastrous: the Mandalay images produced in the last decade, which now stand in public collections in Asia and the States, have been published as genuine Pagan bronzes. And there are also the private collectors who are probably very proud of their recently acquired large Burmese bronzes. As evidenced by the dramatically reduced number of sales in London and New York, the market for Indian and Southeast Asian art is dwindling. The South and Southeast Asian countries have become increasingly aware that they are being stripped of their art treasures. Despite having been given political independence several decades ago by their colonial masters, the exploitation of their artistic wealth by the West has continued. With open frontiers and a small amount of money, it has always been possible to bring images which had stood for many centuries in their homeland to London or New York. It is therefore with good reason that countries like India or Cambodia prohibit the export of their treasures. As a result of such official export bans, images are produced today with the aim of passing them off as ancient artefacts. The main benefactors are the dealers, particularly those at the end of the chain in Europe and the States. Of course they can always claim that they rely on their suppliers from Bangkok or anywhere else; it is probably true that tales of provenance like the ones `sold' together with the Mandalay bronzes, were first thought of in Asia; even then Western dealers persist in selling the tale. The second `benefactors' (who, in fact, get cheated in the whole story) are the collectors, private or public, who find an extreme satisfaction in possessing a rare image.

Finally, it must be noted that none of the genuine Pagan bronzes have undergone metallurgical analysis, whereas some of those considered here have. The reports concerning dating which were made by two British laboratories are not conclusive at all. A high percentage of nickel noticed in a standing bronze (see Stadtner, op. cit., fig. 3) was tentatively related to a late Chinese tradition in the first report. Nickel is only used in an extremely reduced percentage in bronzes from Eastern India (Ulrich von Schroeder, Indo-Tibetan Bronzes, Hong Kong, 1981, pp. 49-53). Doubts should have arisen at this point. From a stylistic and iconographic standpoint, the Pagan bronzes evidently drew their inspiration from Bengal and the region around Bodh Gaya; and in these circumstances, it is very likely that `know-how' would also have been borrowed from these ateliers. The second report made by a London laboratory on a crowned Buddha (see Stadtner, op. cit., fig. 1) suggested quite rightly that nickel had been used because of the silver finish it produces. As a matter of fact, when asked which metals they used and for what reasons, the artists justified their use of nickel for this very reason. Old bricks from Pagan and Amarapura introduced in the core and recycled old scrap bronzes which they melt (a feature which was also suggested in the second report) explain the unusual composition of the metal. However, the metallurgical analysis discussed here has its limits. Definite conclusions cannot be reached as to the date of the casting and the material used, including recyclings. The only way of studying these images is from an art-historical context, and the ability to date them, remains with the experienced eye and the knowledge behind the eye.