The Rediscovery and Reception of Gandharan Art: Proceedings of the Fourth International Workshop of the Gandhara Connections Project, University of Oxford, 24th-26th March, 2021
The ancient Buddhist art of Gandhara was rediscovered from the 1830s and 1840s onwards in what would become the North-West Frontier of British India. By the end of the century an abundance of sculptures had been accumulated by European soldiers and officials, which constituted the foundations for a new field of scholarship and internationally celebrated museum collections. Both then and since, the understanding of Gandharan art has been impeded by gaps in documentation, haphazard excavation, forgery, and smuggling of antiquities. Consequently, the study of Gandharan archaeology often involves the evaluation and piecing together of fragmentary clues. In more subtle ways, however, the modern view of Gandharan art has been shaped by the significance accorded to it by different observers over the past century and a half. Conceived in the imperial context of the late nineteenth century as 'Graeco-Buddhist' art - a hybrid of Asian religion and Mediterranean artistic form - Gandharan art has been invested with various meanings since then, both in and beyond the academic sphere. Its puzzling links to the classical world of Greece and Rome have been explained from different perspectives, informed both by evolving perceptions of the evidence and by modern circumstances. From the archaeologists and smugglers of the Raj to the museums of post-partition Pakistan and India, from coin-forgers and contraband to modern Buddhism and contemporary art, this fourth volume of the Classical Art Research Centre's Gandhara Connections project presents the most recent research on the factors that mediate our encounter with Gandharan art.
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The Rediscovery and Reception of Gandharan Art: Proceedings of the Fourth International Workshop of the Gandhara Connections Project, University of Oxford, 24th-26th March, 2021
The ancient Buddhist art of Gandhara was rediscovered from the 1830s and 1840s onwards in what would become the North-West Frontier of British India. By the end of the century an abundance of sculptures had been accumulated by European soldiers and officials, which constituted the foundations for a new field of scholarship and internationally celebrated museum collections. Both then and since, the understanding of Gandharan art has been impeded by gaps in documentation, haphazard excavation, forgery, and smuggling of antiquities. Consequently, the study of Gandharan archaeology often involves the evaluation and piecing together of fragmentary clues. In more subtle ways, however, the modern view of Gandharan art has been shaped by the significance accorded to it by different observers over the past century and a half. Conceived in the imperial context of the late nineteenth century as 'Graeco-Buddhist' art - a hybrid of Asian religion and Mediterranean artistic form - Gandharan art has been invested with various meanings since then, both in and beyond the academic sphere. Its puzzling links to the classical world of Greece and Rome have been explained from different perspectives, informed both by evolving perceptions of the evidence and by modern circumstances. From the archaeologists and smugglers of the Raj to the museums of post-partition Pakistan and India, from coin-forgers and contraband to modern Buddhism and contemporary art, this fourth volume of the Classical Art Research Centre's Gandhara Connections project presents the most recent research on the factors that mediate our encounter with Gandharan art.
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The Rediscovery and Reception of Gandharan Art: Proceedings of the Fourth International Workshop of the Gandhara Connections Project, University of Oxford, 24th-26th March, 2021

The Rediscovery and Reception of Gandharan Art: Proceedings of the Fourth International Workshop of the Gandhara Connections Project, University of Oxford, 24th-26th March, 2021

The Rediscovery and Reception of Gandharan Art: Proceedings of the Fourth International Workshop of the Gandhara Connections Project, University of Oxford, 24th-26th March, 2021

The Rediscovery and Reception of Gandharan Art: Proceedings of the Fourth International Workshop of the Gandhara Connections Project, University of Oxford, 24th-26th March, 2021

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Overview

The ancient Buddhist art of Gandhara was rediscovered from the 1830s and 1840s onwards in what would become the North-West Frontier of British India. By the end of the century an abundance of sculptures had been accumulated by European soldiers and officials, which constituted the foundations for a new field of scholarship and internationally celebrated museum collections. Both then and since, the understanding of Gandharan art has been impeded by gaps in documentation, haphazard excavation, forgery, and smuggling of antiquities. Consequently, the study of Gandharan archaeology often involves the evaluation and piecing together of fragmentary clues. In more subtle ways, however, the modern view of Gandharan art has been shaped by the significance accorded to it by different observers over the past century and a half. Conceived in the imperial context of the late nineteenth century as 'Graeco-Buddhist' art - a hybrid of Asian religion and Mediterranean artistic form - Gandharan art has been invested with various meanings since then, both in and beyond the academic sphere. Its puzzling links to the classical world of Greece and Rome have been explained from different perspectives, informed both by evolving perceptions of the evidence and by modern circumstances. From the archaeologists and smugglers of the Raj to the museums of post-partition Pakistan and India, from coin-forgers and contraband to modern Buddhism and contemporary art, this fourth volume of the Classical Art Research Centre's Gandhara Connections project presents the most recent research on the factors that mediate our encounter with Gandharan art.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781803272337
Publisher: Archaeopress Publishing
Publication date: 03/10/2022
Pages: 230
Product dimensions: 7.95(w) x 10.87(h) x (d)

About the Author

Wannaporn Rienjang is Lecturer in Archaeology, Museum and Heritage Studies at the Faculty of Sociology and Anthropology, Thammasat University and a project consultant for the Gandhāra Connections project at the Classical Art Research Centre, Oxford. She completed her doctoral degree in Archaeology at the University of Cambridge in 2017, and has been involved in research projects focusing on the art and archaeology of Greater Gandhāra, Indian Ocean Trade and ancient working technologies of stone beads and vessels. Peter Stewart is Director of the Classical Art Research Centre and Professor of Ancient Art at the University of Oxford. He has worked widely in the fields of Graeco-Roman sculpture and ancient world art. His publications include Statues in Roman Society: Representation and Response (2003), The Social History of Roman Art (2008), and A Catalogue of the Sculpture Collection at Wilton House (2020).

Table of Contents

Preface - Wannaporn Rienjang and Peter Stewart Part 1 Archaeology and Collecting History Reconstructing Jamalgarhi and Appendix B: the archaeological record 1848-1923 - Elizabeth Errington Gandharan stucco sculptures from Sultan Khel (former Khyber Agency) in the collection of Peshawar Museum: a study in three parts - Zarawar Khan, Fawad Khan, and Ghayyur Shahab A unique collection of confiscated material of Gandhara (Pakistan) - Muhammad Ashraf Khan and Tahir Saeed Part 2 Receptions Gandharan imagery as remembered by Buddhist communities across Asia - Kurt A. Behrendt Archaeology of Buddhism in post-partition Punjab: the disputed legacy of Gandhara - Himanshu Prabha Ray From colonial Greece to postcolonial Rome? Re-orienting ancient Pakistan in museum guides in the 1950s and 1960s - Andrew Amstutz Stories of Gandhara: antiquity, art and idol - Shaila Bhatti The art of deception: perspectives on the problem of fakery in Gandharan numismatics - Shailendra Bhandare Gandhara in the news: rediscovering Gandhara in The Times and other media - Helen Wang
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