Collection: Gandhara Art

Gandhara Art, also known as the Graeco-Buddhistic Art, consists of almost exclusively Buddhist sculpture that flourished along the valleys of the Kabul river and it’s tributaries in what is now Afghanistan and northwest Pakistan, as well as along the river Indus and some of it’s tributaries in contemporary India.

Chronologically, it started in the 1rst century AD and lasted until the arrival of the Islam, so by the end of the 7^th century nearly all the monasteries had been abandoned. Because often the monasteries were constructed in remote valleys (for meditation purposes), they slowly covered up by sand and the sculpture survived until their re-discovery from the 19^th century onwards.

Art-historically it represents an extremely interesting period, since it shows the meeting between East and West: after the passage of Alexander The Great, the Bactrian-Greek kingdoms installed along the Oxus river influenced Buddhist Art: the Buddha was no longer represented symbolically (his footprints, an umbrella, the wheel of the law,..) but now was shown as a Greek god, with all the features of Greek sculpture (treatment of the hair, the Mediterranean nose, the transparency of the dress, the use of optical illusion). Gandhara Art became a narrative art, with realistic rendering of the smallest details, all this to help to spread the Buddhism over a largely illiterate population.

Fantastic examples of this Gandhara Art can be seen in the Guimet Museum Paris and in the British Museum London.