The art and architecture of India - Buddhist, Hindu, Jain (Art Ebook)

156 ROMANO-INDIAN ART
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Nothing could be more striking than the
contrast of the typical Gandhara and Mathura
heads reproduced in illustrations 67 and 99. Nor
could anything more emphatically reveal the
contribution of the school of Mathura to Indian
Buddhist art. If the ushnisha of the Gandhara
example was disguised by the krobylos borrowed
from classical art, this cranial extension is fully
revealed in the Mathura head as a kind of tiered
snail-shell structure. The Gandhara head is a
curious mixture of abstraction and realism : the
brows and eyes are modelled with the hard dryness
of carving characteristic of Late Antique
art, whereas the lower part of the face is
99. Head of Buddha from Mathura.
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sculptured with apparent concern for the
realistic definition of the structure of the mouth
and chin, so that the result is at once mask-like
and inconsistent. The head of the Buddha from
Mathura is, on the contrary, completely consistent
in the sculptor's self-imposed abstraction.
The individual features are integrated into
the essentially spheroidal mass of the head, and
no lingering over exactitude of anatomical
detail interferes with the primary concern for
the presentation of the solid volume of the
whole. No less than in the bodies of Kushan
Buddhas is there a suggestion of expansive
inner force achieved by the composition of the
head as a collection of subtly interlocking
and swelling planes, from the curve of cheek
and jowl to the related curvatures of eyelids and
brows.
In contrast to the cold and often rather vapid
expressions of the Gandhara Buddhas, the faces
of the statue dedicated by Friar Bala and other
examples from the Kushan school at Mathura
are characterized by an open, radiant expression:
the eyes are fully open, the cheeks
round and full, the mouth ample, with lips
drawn into a slight smile. This smile is probably
the earliest appearance of the only possible
device by which the Indian sculptor could
indicate the inner contentment and repose of
the Buddha's nature; in later schools, like the