SKINNER MUSEUM: Closed
GiveMt. Koyasan
Coyne, Petah E.
American (1953 - )
Place made:
North America; United States; Massachusetts; South Hadley and Florence
Mt. Koyasan, 2012
Photogravure on paper
Sheet: 36 1/2 in x 47 in; 92.7 cm x 119.4 cm; Plate: 23 1/4 in x 35 1/8 in; 59.1 cm x 89.2 cm; Image: 22 7/8 in x 34 13/16 in; 58.1 cm x 88.4 cm
Gift of the Mount Holyoke College Printmaking Workshop
MH 2013.17
“If you’re a very serious practicing Buddhist, you must go there [to Mt. Koyasan] every year. . . you travel there by train, by bus, by car, by tram, to get up the mountain, and then you have to walk half a mile through forest and a graveyard, and it’s riddled with snakes. And about a quarter of a mile in, all of a sudden you see a light. And I was so relieved to see the light. And it’s light from the Temple of Lights. And when you get to the temple and you enter over the threshold of the door, you’re amazed, because all of a sudden, light is so bright and brilliant. And you realize it’s 40,000 lanterns, all lit, and they’re stacked one on top of the other. And it’s a light for every single monk that has died and is in the cemeteries that you’ve passed through.”
-Petah Coyne in conversation with Albright-Knox Art Gallery Chief Curator Doug Dreishpoon (2011)
