Gandharan
First-to-fifth century Gandhara (modern Pakistan and
Afghanistan) was a stop on the Silk Road, the ancient route where traders from
Rome, Persia, Alexandria, India and China mingled. Its sculptors united the
aesthetic traditions of East and West using gray schist, stucco or terra-cotta.
 Gupta
Gupta sculpture hails from northern India in the fourth to sixth
centuries, India’s first great classical age. In this transitional era, imagery
is both Buddhist and Hindu. The artistic iconography developed under the Gupta
kings served as the model for generations to come throughout the Asian world.
Forms are fluid, eyes are large and heavy lidded and expressions are benevolent
and serene. Sculptors used sandstone, granite or terra-cotta.
Chola
Made in southern India from the 9th to the 13th centuries, the
bronze icons and temple sculpture of the Chola era depict deities from Hindu
iconography, often in poses derived from ritual dances. Imagery can be exotic,
like the Nataraja—the many-armed Shiva dancing in his cosmic circle. The
voluptuous bodies of goddesses, as well as images of embracing couples,
symbolize fertility or the joining of the soul and the divine.
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