Buddha

The soft folds in the shawl covering the Buddha's shoulder as well as his hair and facial features echo Mediterranean artistic traditions first introduced to the Gandharan region, which encompasses present-day Pakistan and Afghanistan, by Alexander the Great in the fourth century B.C.E. This Greek-inflected style of Buddhist art was popular in the region during the Kushan era (ca. 30-375 C.E.) and persisted afterward. In the case of this Buddha, the square face and the schematized rendering of the drapery, which lacks the naturalism of earlier pieces, indicate that the sculpture was produced after the Kushan rulers had lost control of the region. At that time competing entities, including the n...