Khmer art of Angkor

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c. 802 – 1220 · Asia · architecture, sculpture · origin: Phnom Kulen (Mahendraparvata)

Sandstone temple-mountain: a model of the cosmos with five towers and miles of reliefs

How to recognise it

• Five lotus-bud towers at corners and centre
• Stepped terraces and nested galleries
• Wide water-filled moats around the temple
• Continuous reliefs of apsaras and battles
• Giant stone faces on towers

Why it emerged

Khmer kings presented themselves as embodiments of Shiva or Vishnu and built a Mount Meru temple as the centre of the state; Angkor's irrigated rice economy supplied the labour for vast projects.

Examples

Angkor Watc. 1113–1150The world's largest religious monument; its silhouette is on Cambodia's flagBayonc. 1190Over 200 stone faces on its towers — probably Jayavarman VII as a bodhisattvaBanteay Srei967The 'citadel of women' in pink sandstone, with Angkor's finest carvingBakong881The first great sandstone temple-mountain — a prototype for Angkor Wat

More in this style

• 1186 Ta Prohm

How it spread

• 802 Phnom Kulen
• 881 Roluos (Hariharalaya)
• 900 Angkor (Yashodharapura)
• 928 Koh Ker
• 1080 Phimai, Thailand

Meanwhile elsewhere

• Classic Maya art Americas
• Byzantine art Europe
• Insular art (Ireland and Britain) Europe
• Early Islamic art (Umayyad and Abbasid) Middle East
• Moorish style (al-Andalus) Europe
• Yamato-e, Heian Japanese painting Asia
• Song landscape painting Asia
• Pre-Mongol architecture of Rus Eastern Europe & Russia
• Romanesque Europe
• Ife and Benin bronzes Africa
• Gothic Europe

Wikipedia (English)

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