A Classical Touch?

Richard Stoneman evaluates Ancient Greek influence on Indian sculpture and cave paintings following the invasion of Alexander the Great

- Richard Stoneman

When the British rulers of India first encountered local sculpture during the early 19th century, many were convinced that Greek art was its main inspiration. The chronological coincidence of Alexander the Great’s arrival in north-west India (Bactria) seemed to explain the sudden emergence of the sculpture of the Mauryan Empire (322–185 BC), which leads some art historians to assert that this region was the origin of all Indian art, especially sculpture.

Inevitably, Gandharan Buddhist sculpture (2), with its pronounced Hellenistic style (such as posture, facial features, clothing, and proportion) was the first to catch their eye, but the art of an earlier period was quick to follow. When the Architectural Courts of the South Kensington Museum opened in 1873, the European Court was balanced by an Indian Court containing a cast of the eastern gateway of the stupa (Buddhist shrine) at Sanchi, whose sculpture dates from the 3rd century BC to the 1st century AD.

In a catalogue to the exhibition, Henry Cole (1808–82), the driving force behind the Great Exhibition of 1851 and the subsequent South Kensington Museum, wrote ‘...the exceptional excellence of the Sanchi bas-reliefs suggest that Greek masons, or possibly designers, may have been called in to assist the great work’. Next to arrive in the South Kensington Museum were copies of some of the Buddhist wall-paintings from the Ajanta Caves, which date from the late 3rd century BC to circa AD 460.