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12 October 2005 – 6 February 2006
The exhibition is organised by the Combined National Museums and the Guimet Museum of Asian Art under the patronage of the Crédit Agricole SA and partnership of Vietnam Airlines and the Maison de l’Indochine.
This exhibition brings together for the first time masterpieces from the two major Vietnamese Cham art collections: those of the Da Dang (48 works) and Ho Chi Minh City (15 works) museums. In addition to these works there are 7 sculptures conserved on the My Son site (Quang Nam province), a selection of 23 pieces belonging to the Guimet Museum, 2 sculptures from the Rietberg Museum in Zurich and one piece from the Guimet Museum in Lyon. This exhibition forms part of a collaboration between Vietnam and France and, more particularly, between the Da Nang Museum and the Guimet Museum. In 2002, the installation of a sculpture restoration workshop in the Da Nang Museum on the instigation of the Guimet Museum, led to the strengthening of ancient cultural links between Vietnam and France.
This exhibition is the result. In total, 96 stone, bronze and precious metal sculptures mark the history and illustrate the religions of ancient Champa, a kingdom no longer in existence, formerly situated in the centre of the south of present day Vietnam. The chronological presentation of the works themselves allows one to follow the development of Cham statuary from the oldest pieces known today – around the 5th century – to its swan song, circa 15th century – before the progressive decline of Champa until its disappearance in the 19th century.
A brief historic glimpse
From the end of the 2nd century, a kingdom named Linyi, previously considered to be the ancestor of Champa, is mentioned in Chinese sources. Recent research shows that Linyi, at the edge of the territories placed under the domination of the Empire of the area in the north of present-day Vietnam, was in fact a state independent from Champa which, besides, was known in China by the name of Zhanpo. Towards the 6th and 7th centuries, the architecture and sculpture clearly bear witness to the existence of a group of Indianised states, along the coasts of central Vietnam.
Vietnam, in its own fashion, made the religions and languages of classical India prosper: Hinduism and Buddhism on the one hand and Sanskrit on the other. The ancient history of this country remains little known despite considerable studies carried out from the inscriptions discovered in the temples, inscribed in Sanskrit and ancient Cham. Thus, the art of Champa appears to be one of the major expressions of ancient art of Asia and the South-East. It led to original and delicate works in which the cultural heritage of ancient India is perfectly assimilated.
Les Cham
Of Austronesian origin, the Cham settled along the coasts and river valleys of what is today central and south Vietnam during the first millennium BC. Today the consensus amongst archaeologists is that the remains of the Sa Huynh culture (500 BC –200) are the most ancient traces of their presence in this area; there is ample evidence of commercial contacts with India and China at that time. These were intensified during the early centuries BC when the Cham adopted the foundations of Indian civilisation: the writing and religions which it conveys.
Gradually driven towards the South or absorbed by the Vietnamese whose conquests started from the 10th century, the Cham today are only one of the 54 ethnic minorities of the country, whose 130,000 representatives are essentially grouped together in the Phan Rang region. The Cham disappeared permanently from the geopolitical map of South-East Asia in 1832 when the last southern possessions were annexed to the provinces of Vietnam. However, at that period, the majority of territories which formerly constituted Champa had been abandoned for centuries to the Vietnamese and the temples adorned with sculptures were razed to the ground, abandoned or transformed by the new occupants of the area.
L’art du Champa: quelques clefs
At the end of the 14th century, the French living in Vietnam started to become interested in this ancient culture with such marvellous and intriguing remnants. The first collections were gathered by amateurs, notably in Da Nang, before scientists working under the aegis of the French School of Asian Studies took charge of inventorying, cleaning and restoring the Cham monuments. In the exhibition’s introduction, photographs of the first digs in the large sites of My Son and Dong Duong, as well as various views of major Cham sites, attest to the quality of these works.
La statuaire Cham et les religions
Cham monuments, built from bricks and embellished with stone decoration, are the tower sanctuaries whose architecture derives from models from southern India. They evoke the « mountain » sojourn of the gods. The statuary presented in this exhibition was closely associated to them. From the earliest studies devoted to Champa and its art, the Indian influence which can be seen in a number of monuments and sculptures has been conspicuous. The Cham temple par excellence (the kalan) is a tower sanctuary, a dwelling-place on Earth of the divinity to whom it is consecrated. It consists of a monument derived from Indian models: a square, level building surmounted by a roof of diminishing false floors. The brick used as an exclusive building material throughout Cham history represents great originality. No other country in south-east Asia would have used it on such a scale and with such skill.
The statuary, for its part, retains both the iconography of the great Indian religions, Buddhism and Hinduism, as well as a certain manner of approaching the representation of the divine. The features were always stylised, but retained a certain humanity. Over several thousand years of history, the main religion practised in Champa was Shivaism. Although Hinduism was constantly privileged by the local sovereigns, Budhhism was also introduced to Champa. The contacts which the Cham maintained with India and China from the first centuries AD favoured its early arrival. Chinese chronicles record the presence of Buddhism in Champa from the 5th century.
Two hundred years later, a Chinese pilgrim mentioned Champa among those countries holding Buddhist doctrine in high esteem. It is at that time that Buddhism of the Great Vehicle (Mahayana) is witnessed, notably due to the representations of Avalokiteshvara, the most popular image, symbolising the virtue of compassion; one of the foundations of Buddhist thinking. But it was in the 8th and 9th centuries that the blossoming of Mahayana in Champa took place, as a result of international exchanges between north-east India and the whole of south-east Asia.
Le classicisme Cham
Le Xe siècle constitue l’âge d’or artistique du Champa. De nombreux monuments datant de cette période nous sont parvenus en bon état de conservation ainsi qu’un nombre très important de sculptures provenant de sites comme Khuong My, My Son ou Tra Kieu. Les œuvres du début de la période (style de Khuong My, première moitié du Xe siècle) conservent certaines caractéristiques de l’art de Dong Duong : chevelure en pointe sur les tempes, traits des visages encore relativement accentués. Dans la deuxième phase du classicisme cham (style de Tra Kieu, seconde moitié du Xe siècle et début du XIe), la physionomie s’adoucit et les éléments décoratifs - bijoux, costumes, etc. - sont plus sobres. Le décor architectural et les monuments dans leur ensemble s’inscrivent dans la même perspective d’élégance et de pureté.
Les sites
My Son
My Son, the “beautiful mountain” is one of the principal Cham sites. Situated at the heart of a mountainous amphitheatre, the temples are laid out in coherent groups centred round a principal sanctuary. Away from the urban and commercial centres, My Son was the private property of the god Shiva. During the excavation work of the My Son monuments in 1903, Henri Parmentier discovered a collection of little sculptures almost identical to each other.
They would very probably have been originally located in the tower sanctuaries constructed in miniature at the foot of the major temple of My Son consecrated to Shiva in the form of the linga. Several interpretations have been proposed concerning the identification of these little characters, before the discovery of a pedestal sculpted with this type of divinities allowed them to be characterised. It turned out that they were guardians of the space (dikpala) protecting the eight cardinal and inter-cardinal points. Some of them were identifiable thanks to the animals – their mounting – that feature on the pedestal, or to the attributes that they can hold in their hands. Today, spread around the three museums of Vietnam, they are reunited here for the first time since 1903.
Le temple de Dong Duong
Consacré en 875 par le roi Indravarman IV, le sanctuaire bouddhique de Dong Duong fut édifié à quelques dizaines de kilomètres au sud du site shivaïte de My Son. Établi dans une vaste plaine, sans doute au centre de la grande cité d’Indrapura, ce très important ensemble de monuments réunissait des tours-sanctuaires et des salles d’assemblée régulièrement disposées le long d’un axe est-ouest. On accédait aux différentes enceintes par de grands pavillons d’entrée (gopura) où veillaient, de part et d’autre de la porte, des sculptures de gardiens à l’attitude menaçante (dvarapala). Dégagé et étudié par Henri Parmentier et Charles Carpeaux (automne 1902), le site fut presque totalement détruit lors du conflit américain. Témoignant du développement de la doctrine du bouddhisme du grand véhicule, les images vénérées dans le temple révèlent la part des influences indiennes et cinghalaises, mais aussi celle des sanctuaires bouddhiques de l’Asie centrale et de la Chine.
Tra Kieu
Various animals, mainly lions and elephants, and also a number of dancers bearing a scarf, feature among the sculptures discovered in Tra Kieu from the end of the 19th century and especially during the two excavation campaigns led by Jean-Yves Claeys in 1927 and 1928. The alternation lions/elephants is derived from decorative and symbolic Indian sketches. The presence of the scarf dancers – a theme originating probably from the Chinese world, proves to be most original and constitutes one of the most individual monuments of the site.
Le XIème siècle
In a very turbulent historic context during which the kingdoms of central and southern Champa struggled for dominance, the 11th century stands out for the establishment of new religious foundations established in the south. A few further sanctuaries were constructed in My Son and the surrounding area, while the largest structures were from then on built 500 kilometres further south. The impressive group of « silver towers », a Shivaite sanctuary built on a high hill in the form of a terraced pyramid can be seen. It was there that in 1889, Eugène Navelle was to discover the great Shiva which today represents the masterpiece of the Cham collection in the Guimet Museum.
Thap Mam
It is at the end of the trunk of the impressive gajasimha (elephant-lion) on show at the centre of the exhibition hall that one owes the existence of the relics of the tower sanctuary of Thap Mam. The peasant who discovered this work was intending to move a rural milestone which was, in fact, the end of the animal’s trunk which was showing through the surface of the soil. After having dug down a little, he realised that it was in fact a sculpture…
Le crépuscule de l’art Cham
From 1471, the Cham kingdom was limited to the southern provinces of Kauthara and Panduranga. The political and commercial splendour of the past centuries became hazy in the face of the conquering power of Vietnam. From the 13th century on, the artistic creation in Champa entered a long and irreversible twilight. Few examples of architecture remain from the final periods of the Cham history; the statuary, on the other hand, has left us several major works, expressing for the last time a taste for abstraction, and an incisive style.
