Board Thread:Updates and Annoucements/@comment-24509764-20140826215327/@comment-4803039-20150330015650

I got around to looking at that info I grabbed:

Ni-o (Pair of Temple Guardians)

Japan, Nambokucho Period, Kamakura Period?

made of Wood with Lacquer

Ni-o, literally "two kings" are guardian images which flan the entrances of Buddhist temples. Befitting their roles as protectors of the Buddhist faith, they are usually depicted as ferocious, semi-nude figures with exaggerated musculature and facial expressions. They are represented as uttering the cosmic sounds of 'a' (open-mouthed) and 'un', the first and last letters of the sanskrit alphabet, symbolizing the begining and end of all things, thus reminding us of the brevity of life. The hyper-realism and full-plasticity of these figures was achieved through the yosegi technique of multiple block construction. Originally, both images would have been brightly painted over a layer of black lacquer.