Very rarely does an art exhibition include the actual wall an artist worked on, but the Saint Louis Art Museum does so for
Chinese Buddhist Art, 10th-15th Centuries. A six-foot-by-four-foot section of a temple wall that has a painting of the Bodhisattva Akalokiteśvara (Guanyin) on one side is the focal point of the exhibition, and an exceptionally rare object. The show also includes four hanging scrolls, and a never-before-displayed painted, wooden sculpture of a seated
arhat, the Buddhist term for a person who has achieved enlightenment.
Chinese Buddhist Art, 10th-15th Centuries is open Tuesday through Sunday (March 30 to August 30) in gallery 225 of the Saint Louis Art Museum (1 Fine Arts Drive;
www.slam.org). Admission is free.
— Paul Friswold