The Buddhist Art of Gandhara: The Story of the Early School, its Birth, Growth and Decline c17.4

c17.4

No form of art is so conservative as sacred art, and nothing in that art more conservative than the cult image. This is true of the sacred art of all ages and in all parts of the world, and the Graeco-Buddhist art of Gandhāra was no exception to the rule. But even in images of the Buddha and of the Bodhisattvas changes and modifications are visible which after the fixation of the orthodox types continue to reflect the changing fashions. Such changes are well exemplified in fig. 131. Compare it, for example, with fig. 111, which dates from the Early Maturity Period. Anyone not very familiar with Gandhāra art might readily take these two statues to be of the same age and school, but that fig. 131 in reality is referable to a substantially later period than fig. 111 is clear from several features; for, whereas the Buddha in fig. 111 is wearing a moustache and has his eyes wide open and his hair taken back from the forehead over the uṣṇīṣa, in fig. 131 he has no moustache, the eyes are half-closed and the hair is dressed in tight little ringlets. Apart, too, from these significant features, there is a notable difference in the general style of the two statues, that of fig. 111 being free and unconstrained—the work of a sculptor with an innate sense for simple rhythmic form; while that of fig. 131 is tight, laboured and self-conscious—the work of a craftsman rather than an artist, who, like many of his contemporaries, was showing off his skill in the mechanical excellence and precision of his carving. Should any doubt still exist as to the age of this image, it is completely set at rest by the figural relief adorning its base. Such figural reliefs on the pedestals of statues did not come into fashion until the middle of the second century A.D., and to judge by its style this particular relief can hardly be earlier than the last quarter of that century.