Asian Art History Essay

Asian Art History

Both Buddhist and Hindu art are basically connected with their culture Buddhist art According to Sandanshiv , is connected with culture which is developed through education . He explained that there cannot be culture without education , that is why the earliest world universities at Nalanda , Valabhi , Vikrasila and Takshasila were established by the Buddhist . Sandanshiv pointed out that Buddhist culture , its fruits in the form of fine arts , humanities and science are the express of wisdom without superstitions and supernaturalism

The fusion of Hinduism and Buddhism in Indian art , it

is important to know first about their culture to understand clearly

Sandanshiv said

culture which is derived from a

word meaning Tilling , can be looked at from three points of view

First of all , it is the act of developing the intellectual , aesthetic moral

and social nature of man through education and discipline

Secondly , it is that knowledge in the fine arts , humanities and science that refined state of mind which such education tends to induce

Thirdly , it is those objects which are the effect in the artist and the cause of the refinement referred to . The thing cultivated by education is a mental development and improvement in intelligence in raising to higher levels the intelligent quotient . Its fruits of such cultivation are manifested and found in fine arts , creative expression and scientific findings and their application in practical life through technology and mass production of socially useful goods and services For Buddhist culture must be able to function as means to enlightenment and since the fine arts like painting , music , poetry , science like physics , mathematics , chemistry , biology , humanities like psychology and geography are by reason of their greater intellectual and emotional appeal to heighten consciousness to higher levels , Buddhism is not intimately connected (Sandanshiv 18-19

The various schools of Buddhist art of each era blended with the previous and added its distinct touch . Detailed explanations are provided for the Buddha statues , their characteristics , different postures and subtle variations in the folds of the robes . Buddhist art is a popular nomenclature to distinguish one group of monuments including painting , cave-temples and architecture , etc , from another stand point of the predominance of one or the other religious theme

In the other hand , Indian art , according to Havell In his book Indian Sculpture and Painting ' thought that Indian art was conceptual , aiming at the realization of 'something finer and subtle than ordinary physical beauty . The image that the Indian created came from inside his head he had no need of a goose-pimpled model posing uncomfortably in his studio His achievement was not that of capturing real life in art , but of giving birth to an abstract ideal . He said

A figure with three heads , and four , six or eight arms , seems to a European a barbaric conception , though it is not less physiologically impossible than the wings growing from the human scapula in the European representation of angels . But it is altogether foolish to condemn such artistic allegories a priori because...