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Angkor - 2003
Angkor - 2003
Jacek Pałkiewicz2006-06-25 13:29:32
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ornamentation had all been fused in an paroxysm of creative energy, but it is precisely these factors that make it unique of its kind.
Comparing it with the classical Angkor Vat, one could read it as a sort of savage baroque. In Bayon linearity, the delicate rounded columns of windows, and spacious luminous galleries were abandoned, while emphasis was given to the undulating rough outlines, narrow spaces, and lengthy shadows; for, like a sculpture, the essential element animating it is light. In the meantime, the rose-coloured sky had turned red, and by contrast, the ambient green lit up, and the pale mould and moss sprouting on this giant, asleep for centuries, took on a bluish tinge in the shadows, while those in the light reflected the intensity of the sun.
Round the ideal centre of this 43-metre-high mountain-temple rose 54 majestic towers. Each of them obsessively presented the four gigantic faces of the ubiquitous Buddha. It is said that they are the likeness of Jayavarman VII himself in the new identification with this divinity. In fact, this was the sovreign who was the artificer of the religious revolution that replaced the Indian cult of the Brahma, Siva, Vishnu triad with the much more rigorous Buddhist creed; and above all, he is to be credited with contriving to make them live together in peace.
The deafening chirps of millions of locusts reached the roof of this shady earthly garden, where time seems to have stopped. Cautiously making my way among the ramifying ferns and stepping over camouflaged stones, I went in through a breach in the long 600 by 1000 metre temple wall of the royal monastery Ta Prohm. The entrance, guarded by the usual Buddha faces, as well as the tourist itinerary, were far off, but from that point the spectacle that spread before my eyes surpassed even the most fervid imagination. Even more than the work itself, which must have been equal to the others in monumentality, the real protagonist was nature,
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See photographs from:
Cambodia Gallery
