Françoise Pommaret
Director of research, CRCAO/CNRS, France Adjunct Professor, ILCS, Royal University of Bhutan
Bhutan. History viewed through the prism of iconography
Bhutan is famous for its Buddhist art that belongs to the cultural matrix of Tibet and which covers a large part of Asia, including the Mongolia. Because of its religious and historical development specific it has an iconography that tells the history of the country.
Deities, cultural heroes and religious figures blend into an iconographic configuration that was able to survive thanks to the independence of the country.
While using a classic Himalayan iconography, the religious texture and the ideology of the Bhutanese historiography takes place in the temples and fortresses. Religious transmissions, subjugation of demons, monks, secular donors and even cases of love affairs are shown echoing the textual and oral stories that belong only to Bhutan.