| Abstract: |
Angkor’s legacy continued, after its imperial zenith, in areas of its former influence like central Thailand. The appearance of ‘Uthong art’ between the 13th and 15th centuries represents a key moment in the nation-building of modern Thailand and reflects an Angkorian ancestry. French colonial scholars originally introduced this art tradition in the Chao Phraya River basin as a simple, unilinear development of a Thai royal style, looking no further than contemporary royal Thai annals for empirical support. Recent debates concerning the dating of Uthong Buddha statues and monumental architecture suggest a more complex trajectory, in which the origins and the political impact of Angkor affected this style’s development. This chapter has three primary objectives: (1) to critique the national agenda that frames Uthong art as uniquely Thai in origin and development, (2) to challenge conventional Uthong stylistic chronologies through using recent radiometric dates of Uthong Buddha images, and (3) to present the spatial distribution of Uthong art and architecture to argue that Angkor and its legacy helped shape the emergence and form of Thailand’s first unified polity.
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