cover image Temples of Gold: Seven Centuries of Thai Buddhist Paintings

Temples of Gold: Seven Centuries of Thai Buddhist Paintings

Sankti Leksukhum. George Braziller, $85 (263pp) ISBN 978-0-8076-1476-1

Even a confident lover of much Asian art may be surprised by the splendor and variety of the visual arts in Thailand. In Temples of Gold: Seven Centuries of Thai Buddhist Paintings, Bangkok art historian Santi Leksukhum (trans. by Kenneth Whitehead) demonstrates how Thai art evolved, what to look for in the paintings and how to see it; religious conventions, political events and several types of perspective are all explained. Photographer Gilles Mermet's (Mosaics of Roman Africa) 120 handsome, full-color images capture the splendors and oddities of Thai Buddhist murals, panels and architecture from sometimes-contorted, colorful battles and crowd scenes to elegant gold-and-black meditating Buddhas, surrounded by light or suspended amid the waves. ( Mar.)