KHMER, ANGKOR BOREI PERIOD, 8TH/9TH CENTURY

Exhibiting the lyricism and grace that characterizes the treatment of the body in Gupta-period India, art of the Pre-Angkor period minimizes ornamentation in order to emphasize the smooth contours of the form, thereby enhancing the figure’s sensuality in an innovative visual vocabulary. Gracefully and powerfully positioned in a frontal stance, the figure wears a simple and unpleated sampot typical of Pre-Angkor sculpture. The body is poised and appears ready to move, the chest bared and tapering towards a belly that gently rises with the intake of prana, the sacred life-breath. During the Pre-Angkor period, experimentations with art and iconography produced figures of deities imbued with an energy that would continue to reverberate throughout the duration of the Khmer empire.