Gandhara School Of Buddhist Art

Can you please provide me some details of the Gandhara School of Buddhist Art?

Gandhara art, is the school of Buddhist visual art that was developed in what is now northwestern Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan between the 1st century BC and the 7th century . This is the style, of Greco-Roman origin, and was flourished largely during the Kushan dynasty and was contemporary with an important but dissimilar school of Kushan art at Mathura.

The materials used for making the Gandhara sculpture were green Phyllite and gray-blue mica schist which in general, belong to an earlier phase, and was used increasingly after the 3rd century ce. The sculptures were originally painted.

The Gandhara region of which the art is named after had long been a center of cultural influences. During the reign of the Indian emperor Ashoka (3rd century BCE), the region became the scene of intensive Buddhist missionary activity.

And in the 1st century, rulers of the Kushan empire, which included Gandhara, maintained contacts with Rome that helped in developing the art school.

Gandhara school of art was drawn upon the traditions of Roman religion and represented the Buddha with a youthful Apollo-like face, dressed in garments resembling those seen on Roman imperial statues of that time .

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