A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c11.s1.7

c11.s1.7

Geographically Mathurā occupies a central position intermediate between Gandhāra to the north-west, Amarāvatī to the south-east, and Sārnāth to the east. It is therefore not surprising that the local school of art should display intermediate characters, linking it on the one hand with the Hellenistic art of Gandhāra, and on the other with the more purely Indian schools of the interior. At one time I believed the Hellenizing sculptures of Mathurā to be earlier than those of Gandhāra, but that view has been proved to be erroneous. The Mathurā sculptors continued to turn out creditable work during the Gupta period, as will appear in the next chapter.