September 03, 2009

magician, or perhaps sage or prophet?


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photo by Donald Kinney

To be carved in a semi-precious stone like this, the subject must have been held in high regard.   Perhaps a teacher or sage.   I found it in San Francisco's Asian Art Museum.

It sort of looks like polished Alabaster to me, but now I'm wondering if it might be something like Jade.   It's about ten inches tall.

Had I thought I was going to "put it in the blog" I would have recorded a bit of information about the piece, but lacking that I guess I'll just have to go back some day and take another look at it.

You know, the person who would know about the material would be the nice gentleman in the expensive suit that stopped to talk me as I was wandering around the third floor of the museum.   We had a fine little chit-chat.   I didn't think to ask him what he did at the museum but he was so refined in his appearance and countenance that I'm imagining that he is one of the higher-up mucky-mucks.

The Asian Art Museum is located in what used to be our library, and they've done a nice transformation remodeling the place into a museum.



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photo by Donald Kinney

This surfer shot and the next two photos aren't new, but they're all on the "San Mateo Coast set" on what I call my "big" site.

Curiously, none of these three photos were actually taken along the San Mateo coast, but they're fairly close.



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photo by Donald Kinney

At Baker Beach -- if you make you're way past the fishermen and nude sunbathers you should be able to stumble on a spectacular view of the Golden Gate Bridge.   Careful not to get wet.



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photo by Donald Kinney

I shot this late in the afternoon with the sun at my back.   The golden color is being picked-up from nearby yellowish cliffs at the southern end of Rodeo Beach.


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Your comments are invited and welcome.

7 comments:

photowannabe said...

Splendid. Love the golden sands.
I can almost feel the fugurine. The lighting is wonderful.

tangobaby said...

What a gorgeous collection of photos today! I love all of these.

Civic Center said...

It's definitely jade (it's the highight of the "Chinese Jade Room"), and it's one of my favorite things in the museum too. And I'm pretty sure the subject is a Buddha. Definitely a holy man.

Tomate Farcie said...

A fine selection!

AphotoAday said...

HI EVERYBODY -- Four nice comments from four of my favorite people...
Thanks SF Mike for the info...

Louise said...

Love the golden beach--so cool, and the one above it. I like water action. (I'm pretty bad at getting it, too.)

Deborah Clearwaters said...

Lovely pictures! You can find information about the figure of you photographed at the museum's online database at
http://67.52.109.59/code/emuseum.asp?style=browse&currentrecord=1&page=search&profile=objects&searchdesc=shakyamuni%20nephrite&quicksearch=shakyamuni%20nephrite&newvalues=1&newstyle=single&newcurrentrecord=1

The material is nephrite--one of the two stones in English that are typically called "jade". It is a "teacher" as you say; it represents the Buddha before his enlightenment.

 
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