FORMS OF AWAKENING-BOGAN

 Forms of Awakening: Selections from the Jack Shear Collection of Himalayan Art celebrates the recent shared gift by Jack Shear to The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum, The Williams College Museum of Art, and the Frances Lehman Loeb Center at Vassar College of over sixty Himalayan art works.

Forms of Awakening: Selections from the Jack Shear Collection of Himalayan Art presents over twenty-five thangka that demonstrate the multivalent and critical roles of Himalayan artists in the practice of Buddhism. Traditional Tibetan paintings—thangka—are used as instructional and devotional objects, with Buddhist imagery painted on cloth and typically covered by a curtain of fabric and rolled for storage when not in use. In an ongoing practice that dates back many centuries, thangka paintings have been displayed during rituals and at certain times of year in monasteries, local shrines, and households, as objects of veneration, tokens of blessing, guides for meditation, and tools for teaching and learning