Drawing from the Collections | Inspired by Sculpture: Rendering Drapery

The Art Museum partners with the Arts Council of Princeton to provide free virtual drawing classes. Weekly classes are taught by artist-instructor Barbara DiLorenzo over Zoom. With an emphasis on drawing with pen or pencil on paper, each week’s lesson in this series will be inspired by a sculpture in the Museum’s collections. 

This live art-making class is inspired by the Chinese wooden sculpture Guanyin seated in Royal-ease pose, which was carved and painted around 1250, during the Southern Song dynasty. The Buddhist deity Guanyin is the Bodhisattva of Infinite Compassion: a figure who has achieved the highest aim in Buddhism, enlightenment, and may pass into nirvana or freedom from suffering. This statue’s flexible pose of rajalilasana, or royal ease, with a raised leg and casually draped arm, became associated with the deity in the late ninth century. In this session, we will draw this sculpture of Guanyin with a focus on rendering the drapery and relief designs.