The Art of The Kingdom of Champa: Its Original and Diversity

Abstract

For those who have visited the Bangkok National Museum, the art, or at least the sculpture, of ancient Champa is not completely unknown. And while this art, which is at times so admirable, yet often so perplexing, is not as well represented in the museum as Javanese art, the six sculptures in the collection which were presented to King Rama VII about seventy years ago (fig. 1), reveal certain tendencies which are the most striking and the most unvarying in Cham art. Dating from the 10th to 12th centuries, these six pieces are almost sufficient in showing how different, both in terms of aesthetics and popular themes, the schools of Cham art are from the rest of Southeast Asia.