The Buddhist Art of Gandhara: The Story of the Early School, its Birth, Growth and Decline c16.3

c16.3

We have now reached the most fertile and best-known period in the history of Gandhāra art—the period covered by the three generations between A.D. 140 or thereabouts, and the break-up of the Kushān Empire. It was the period that produced the bulk of the sculptures usually found in public and private collections, and we shall see how the vastly increased output was accompanied by a creeping deterioration of style; how originality and inventiveness rapidly gave place to conventionalism, and artistry to craftsmanship. But we shall see, also, that the new craftsmanship retained a perfection undreamt of by earlier sculptors; we shall note many attractive, albeit oft-recurring, motifs and patterns; and we shall be charmed by the pervading prettiness of the faces, divine and human.