GANDHARAN ART

For millennia, the lands encompassing present-day Afghanistan and Pakistan have been a crossroads of cultures settled by various peoples. In the 4th century B.C., for instance, Alexander the Great extended his empire to the region and established a number of Greek-Afghan city-states. From the 1st-5th centuries A.D., the area was the Buddhist region of Gandhara, which produced architecture and art demonstrating a melding of Hellenistic (Greek after the time of Alexander the Great), Iranian, and Indian influences.

In some of the most shocking acts of iconoclasm (the destruction of images or art) in recent years, the Taliban regime that formerly ruled Afghanistan destroyed much Gandharan art, including in 2001 the colossal Buddhas of Bamiyan.

The Gandharan art presented here is part of the collection of east and central Asian art given to the University of Oklahoma in 1936 by Lew Wentz and Gordon Matzene of Ponca City. With this donation, OU’s Museum of Art, later named the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, was founded.

Bodhisattva		Standing Reassuring Bodhisattva Siddharta		Bodhisattva
Bodhisattva		Bodhisattva		Bodhisattva
Bodhisattva		Bodhisattva		Bodhisattva
Buddha		Buddha		Buddha
Buddha		Buddha		Buddha
Barbarian		Barbarian		Lion
Male		Monk		Monk
Buddha		Bodhisattva in Meditation		Education of Buddha