愛らしい十一面観音さま

A Beautiful Jūichimen Kannon

葉が色づき風も冷たくなってきました。季節も秋を通り越し、冬になってしまいそうです。
皆さまはいかがお過ごしでしょうか？

今回ご紹介しますのは、ロンドンギャラリー白金にて展示中の金銅十一面観音像【平安時代】です。

We hope this finds you all well as the leaves begin to change and autumn begins to shift into winter, with the evenings growing ever more chilly as October reaches its end.

To warm your spirits, I would like to introduce a work on display in Shirokane now - a gilt bronze Jūichimen Kannon from the Heian period.



こちらの十一面観音像は、頭部から腹部までの断片ではございますが、現高が30cm近く、懸仏の本体としてはきわめて大きな像でございます。

懸仏（かけぼとけ）とは、木や銅の円板に仏像を浮彫し荘厳具をつけ，掛けられるようにしたものです。明治時代以前は、御正体(みしょうたい)と呼ばれていました。
本地垂迹説に基づいて本地仏を表す形式として用いられ、平安時代末期～鎌倉時代初期に、鏡に仏像を毛彫して神社に奉納したのが始まりといわれています。

Although only a bust remains now, it measures nearly 30cm in height and would have been a considerably large kakebotoke (lit. "hanging buddha") in its original form. Kakebotoke are Buddhist deities that were carved or cast in relief, adorned with a variety of decorative elements, mounted on bronze or wooden discs and then hung within temples. Before the Meiji period, they were also called mishōtai, or the "true form" of the deities they represented. According to the honji-suijaku theory developed in the late Heian period, Shinto deities were local Japanese manifestations of Buddhist deities, and their forms were etched into mirrors and copper alloy discs, and dedicated to shrines.



なんといってもこの愛らしいお顔立ち、平安時代の特徴でもありますが、その柔らかくお優しい目で、見る者を包み込んでいくようです。
お越しいただきました方々より、「奥の床の間で静かに佇むそのお姿に癒されました！」とお声をいただき、大変嬉しい限りにございます♪

こちらは11月2日（土）までの展示となります。
是非この機会に会いにいらして下さいませ♪

Calm, gentle expressions such as this are typical of Heian Buddhist sculpture, but the soft, graceful eyes of this piece particularly seem to completely envelop those of us looking at it. One visitor said on their way out, "The sculpture quietly hiding in the back tokonoma has left me feeling so at ease!" which was wonderful to hear.

We hope that you too will take advantage the opportunity to come see it before the end of our current exhibition on Saturday November 2.