Several free-standing Indian figures turn the show’s final gallery, teasingly titled “The Buddha Revealed,” into a kind of chapel.
And it is visually clear that a page has turned, both in the exhibition’s narrative, and in the history of Buddhism itself.
By the time the latest of these single-figure icons was made in the late fifth to sixth century C.E., the map of Buddhism was changing.
If you didn’t know of this fate it would be hard to guess it from the glowingly vital, all but palpitating early Indian Buddhist art in the Met show.
Tree & Serpent: Early Buddhist Art in India, 200 B.C.E.
Organizations:
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Locations:
Southeast Asia, China, Japan, India, ., Islam, New, Art