The Encyclopedia of Tibetan Symbols and Motifs

Description

For artists, designers, and all with an interest in Buddhist and Tibetan art, this is the first exhaustive reference to the seemingly infinite variety of symbols found throughout Tibetan art in line drawings, paintings, and ritual objects. Hundreds of the author's line drawings depict all the major Tibetan symbols and motifs-landscapes, deities, animals, plants, gurus, mudras (ritual hand gestures), dragons, and other mythic creatures-ranging from complex mythological scenes to small, simple ornaments.

Robert Beer has studied and practiced Tibetan thangka painting for thirty years, including five years of study with master artists Jampa of Dharamsala and Khamtr l Rinpoche of Tashijong. Beer is one of the first Westerners to become actively involved in this art form. Over the last two decades he has concentrated on an extensive series of iconographical drawings depicting the major deities, lineage holders, and symbols that occur in the spectrum of Tibetan art.

"Worth our attention, whatever religion or background, because it gives us an artistic and contemplative mechanism to join inner and outer worlds. This will not come automatically, but only when we approach the book with the desire to refine both our analytical powers and our creative vision. This is a book to live in, for anyone who sees the connection between art and human potential."- Parabola "The first detailed work to appear in English examining the extraordinarily vast and symbolically rich iconography in Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism. . . . A beautiful book."- Watkins Review