GANDHARA
SCHOOL OF ART - ART & CULTURE
News:
Between a Buddhist past
What's
in the news?
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While new discoveries in Gandhara continue
to captivate the world’s attention, the tracing of Buddha himself is absent
from intellectual debates on Gandhara.
About
Gandhara School of Art:
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The Gandhara school of Art arose in modern-day Peshawar and Afghanistan on
Punjab's western boundaries.
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The Greek invaders brought the traditions
of Greek and Roman sculptors with
them, which affected the region's native traditions.
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As a result, the Gandhara School became
known as the Greco-Indian School of Art.
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Between 50 B.C. and 500 A.D., the Gandhara School flourished in two
periods. While the former school's sculptures were made of bluish-grey sandstone, the latter school's were made of mud and plaster.
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The Buddha
and Bodhisattvas iconography was based on the Greco-Roman pantheon and resembled Apollo's.
Major
features:
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The Gandhara sculptures have been
discovered in the Taxila ruins as well as other ancient sites in Afghanistan
and Pakistan.
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They generally consist of Buddha images
and relief sculptures depicting scenes
from Buddhist literature.
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Several Bodhisattva figures were cut out of the rock. The first
preaching in the deer park and the Buddha's death is depicted in a Gandhara
figure.
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The predominant focus of this type of
painting was Lord Buddha and Bodhisattvas, as it was intimately tied with Mahayana Buddhism. As a result, it's
possible that this style was Indian in thought and conception but alien in
execution.
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The Bamiyan Buddha sculptures are an
example of Gandhara style art.
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It thrived primarily in Afghanistan and
present-day North-Western India.
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Taxila, Peshawar, Begram, and Bamiyan were
among the most prominent sites. From the first century BCE through the fourth
century CE, the Gandhara School of art flourished.