The Buddhist Art of Gandhara: The Story of the Early School, its Birth, Growth and Decline c17.18

c17.18

Though not far removed in age from the foregoing, fig. 144 presents a marked contrast in style. Pāñcika, here, has none of the fierceness of the war-god. He is the peace-loving god of wealth and prosperity. His eyes are mild, his features gentle, and he holds no spear in his hand. But the contrast goes deeper than this. For there is no spark of originality in any of the figures of this group. Pāñcika, Hāritī, the cherubic children, even the Bacchic rout on the base—all are typical of the smooth, conventional and well-rounded work that the sculptors of this period were turning out in a ceaseless stream; all finished with exemplary precision, but all dull and uninspired. A feature in which their lack of originality is specially conspicuous is the figures of the children, which are merely stilted replicas of familiar garland-bearing Amorini, like those in figs. 91 and 148, while another is the artificial draping of Pāñcika’s skirt over his left knee, which, as in the preceding figure (fig. 143), follows the slope of the leg instead of falling vertically, as the law of gravity requires. It is a blemish common to many sculptures of this period.