Travel Location: Siem Reap

Duration: Half Day

We have a huge selection of wooden and stone carvings, silver and silk.

We provide vocational training to young people in the arts of wood and stone carving so that they may become highly skilled and be able to make a living for themselves while working from home. CCA provides more than just training to future craftsmen. CCA workshops are an on going operation in Siem Reap province that endeavors to fulfill its mission to help support the livelihoods of families in rural areas.

The sculptures are admirable images of a gods, royal and imposing presences, though not without feminine sensuality, makes us think of important persons at the courts, persons of considerable power. The artists who sculpted the stones doubtless satisfied the primary objectives and requisites demanded by the persons who commissioned them. The sculptures represent the chosen divinity in the orthodox manner and succeeds in portraying, with great skill and expertise, high figures of the courts in all of their splendour, in the attire, adornments and jewelry of a sophisticated beauty.

But if we go beyond this initial impression, we can pause to observe some of the details of the sculptures, such as the double arc drawn by the eyebrows on the foreheads, evoked below by the wisely sketched curve of the noses and further down, by the double arc which masterfully outlines the lips and the double chin. Following a hypothetical vertical line down still further, we find another double arc outlining the breasts, and then, continuing down from the waist all along the skirts and ending in the ankles, we find almost at the bottom, a twisted double arc intended to represent the other side of the skirts. This detail serves, above all, to eliminate a certain hieratic fixedness, which was relatively common in the Khmer statues of lesser quality.