VISUAL ARTS + MUSEUMS

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston presents a MFAH Special Lecture - Gandharan Buddhist Art: A Global Style, Thursday, Jun 09, 2011, 6:30 PM - 7:30 PM, MFAH Brown Auditorium.

The art of ancient Gandhara was little known in the West until the Taliban destroyed the gigantic statues of the Buddha at Bamiyan in 2001. But it was in the Gandhara region of Pakistan (present day Bamiyan in Afghanistan, Bactria, the Hindu Kush, and the Punjab of northwest India) that the first flowering of Buddhist figural art occurred from the 1st century BCE through the 5th century CE.

Join Dr. Pia Brancaccio, Associate Professor of Art History at Drexel University in Philadelphia, as she shows how Gandharan art blended the idealized beauty of the human form expressed in Greek sculpture with the artistic traditions of India, Iran, and Central Asia to create a global style which significantly contributed to the world wide spread of Buddhism.

This program is free and open to the public. A reception to meet the speaker follows the lecture. This program is generously cosponsored by Asia Society Texas Center. This event is part of ASTC's Pakistan Arts and Culture Series in honor of Richard C. Holbrooke.

Pictured:  Indian, Bodhisattva, 2nd–3rd century, schist. Museum purchase with funds provided by the Friends of Asian Art.