Phoenix Art Museum Essay

750 Words3 Pages

Phoenix Art museum is holding one of the amazing historical art exhibitions, which is exhibition Sacred Stories and Images of Buddha: The Vessantara Jataka Scroll. This exhibition has started on the September 2014 and will continue until March 2015. The visitors can explore the interesting story of Buddha through sculptures, figures, and paintings that it is displayed in the art of Asia Gallery section. The purpose of this exhibition is to present the scared stories of Asian’s Buddha, display different figures of Buddha, and an idea of Asian’s cultures, traditions and believes (“Phoenix Art Museum...”). This essay will provide a background on prince Siddhartha Gautama of India, description of the Buddha Torso sculpture, the generosity story that was on the Vessantara Jataka Scroll, and the visual elements of Vessantara Jataka Scroll.
Prince Siddhartha Gautama is known as the Buddha or “the Enlighten one”. He was born to a wealthy family in the Indo-Aryan Sakya republic that is located between Nepal and the Indian province of Bengal in the 6th century BC. He was six foot tall and was trained to be a soldier from a very young age. At age three he …show more content…

It was one of the 547 Jatakas that is stories that have been told by the Buddha about his earlier lives on the path to Enlightenment in the 1930s. These stories have been told to answer the questions about how to follow his wisdom and improve one’s Karma from a rebirth process (Phoenix Art Museum). Prince Vessantara was born as a generous man. As a result of his great generosity he give up many things. He started by giving money to poor people, his holy white elephant, green cloth, horses, chariot, his kids as helpers, and finally his wife. God motivated Vessantara because Vessantara wanted to reach the perfection level of generosity to please God. So, he will stop at nothing to reach his goal (Tour