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Gupta Sculpture

Gupta Sculpture

The Golden Age of Indian Art – Balance, Harmony and Spiritual Expression

The Gupta period may be described as ‘classic’ in the sense of the degree of perfection it
achieved – something that was never achieved before and has seldom been achieved since and
in perfect balance and harmony of all elements in style and iconography also considered as
“The Golden Age of Indian Art”.Gupta sculpture seems to belong to a sphere that is entirely
different. The Gupta artist seems to have been working for a higher ideal. A new orientation
in the attitude towards art is noticed in the attempt to establish a closer harmony between
art and thought, between the outer forms and the inner intellectual and spiritual conception
of the people.

Features of Gupta sculpture

The human figure, taken as the image, is the pivot of Gupta sculpture. A new canon of beauty
is evolved leading to the emergence of a new aesthetic ideal.

This ideal is based upon an explicit understanding of the human body in its inherent softness
and suppleness.

The soft and pliant body of the Gupta sculpture with its smooth and shining texture, facilitates
free and easy movement

Gupta sculptures are characterized by elaborate draperies, jewellery, etc.

The wet or transparent clinging drapery hence became the fashion of this age. But the sensuous
effect of these draperies especially in the case of female figures was restrained by a conscious
moral sense, and nudity as a rule was eliminated from Gupta sculpture.

The magnificent red sandstone image of the Buddha from Mathura is a most remarkable example
of Gupta workmanship datable to the 5th century A.D. The great Master, in all his sublimity,
is here shown standing with his right hand in Abhayamudra, assuring protection, and the left
holding the hem of the garment.

The smiling countenance with down-cast eyes is robed in spiritual ecstasy. The robe covering
both shoulders is skillfully represented with delicately covered schematic folds and clings
to the body. The head is covered with schematic spiral curls with a central protuberance and
the elaborate halo decorated with concentric bands of graceful ornamentation.

Buddha sculpted during the Gupta time

The finished mastery in execution and the majestic serenity of expression of the image of
Buddha came to be adopted and locally modified by Siam, Cambodia, Burma, Java, Central Asia,
China and Japan, etc., when these countries adopted the Buddhist religion.

The image of the standing Buddha is an excellent example of Gupta art in its maturity from
Sarnath. Unlike the delicately carved drapery folds of the Mathura Buddha, only the fringe of
the diaphanous robe is here indicated. The perfect execution of the figure matched by its
serene spiritual expression is truly worthy of the sublime being.

Sarnath introduces not only a delicacy and refinement of form but also a relaxed attitude by
bending the body in the case of the standing figure, slightly on its own axis, thus imparting
to it a certain litheness and movement in contrast to the columnar rigidity of similar Mathura
works.

The stone carving from the temples at Deogarh and those from the temples of Udayagiri and
Ajanta are excellent specimens of figure sculpture in their decorative setting. The large
panel of Sheshashayi Vishnufrom the Deogarh temple, representing the Supreme being slumbering
wakefully on the serpent Ananta, the symbol of eternity, in the interval between the dissolution
of the universe and its new creation, is a magnificent example.

Anantasheshashayee, Vishnu Temple, Deogarh, Uttar Pradesh
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