Tree & Serpent: Early Buddhist Art in India, 200 BCE - 400 CE

Tree and Serpent: Early Buddhist Art in India, 200 BCE - 400 CE. Metropolitan Museum of Art, fall 2023.

  • The exhibit's title is misleading; the exhibit in fact covers Buddhist art in the south of India (= the mythological 'Andhra'). The exhibit's catalogue makes some claims about how this focus helps us reimagine the history of Buddhist art, which has tended to focus on the Buddhist 'heartland' in the north (Ashoka, the great stupa at Sanchi, Gandhara art). 
  • But I think the southern focus is a bit of a bust. The exhibit itself seriously downplays the southern focus, scarcely mentioning it and rarely helping the viewer understand how this southern art differs from northern parallels (thematically, chronologically, etc.). Some southern art also is a standard part of the story of Buddhist art; for example, Partha Mitter's book on Indian art and this exhibit both give some prominence to the stupa at Amaravati.
  • Largely the exhibit matches the larger narrative of early Buddhist art in something like Mitter's Indian Art: largely stone from Buddhist religious architecture, especially stupas (grave mounts with relics of the Buddha); originally 'aniconic' (no images of the Buddha), later with the Buddha on reliefs, along with increasing size and ornament on the reliefs. E.g. 
    • this exhibit has an early small relief with serpents protecting an empty throne (representing the Buddha), and a later larger relief with serpents protecting the Buddha himself; these later reliefs are just overflowing in human figures and stuff, with scarcely any space left uncarved
    • similarly, depictions of stupas are initially quite bare (even just abstract semicircles and cylinders), whereas later the depictions of stupas have themselves embedded narratives.
  • The exhibit makes a point of later freestanding Buddhas that are themselves worshipped (a bit like Greco-Roman temple deities); not a part of Mitter's book.
  • Clear links with Greco-Roman culture, including trade of physical objects (young woman found at Pompeii) and motifs (lions on pillars). The worship of Buddha images maybe fits in here; a bit like Greco-Roman worship.
  • By contrast, I'm not convinced by the exhibit's claims that Buddhism's love of nubile young women comes from pre-Buddhist religion (along with other supposed links to pre-Buddhist religion); no examples are provided. That said, it does seem to be a feature of early Indian culture, shared with Buddhism, Hinduism (the one Hindu artwork in this exhibit is of Sri Lakshmi), and exported art (Pompeii woman).
  • In some ways a very old-fashioned exhibit: the title Tree & Serpent alludes to Fergusson's pioneering study of Buddhist art (_Tree and Serpent Worship: Or, Illustrations of Mythology and Art in India..._, 1868, link), which looked particularly at Sanchi and Amaravati. Even then Amaravati was a big deal.
  • I'm left with a bunch of questions:
    • Why does elaborate figural art in India begin with Buddhism in the 3rd century BCE? maybe Greco-Roman influence?
    • Why is this art restricted to very particular contexts -- above all the Buddhist stupa? Despite contact with other visual cultures (e.g. Rome), other kinds of art either never existed or no longer exists. Pointing to the 'survival bias' explanation are the two medallions in the exhibit, which are very different in technique and subject from the Buddhist art.
    • I'm also still left wondering about the Buddhism in this Buddhist art. I am not moved by looking at these reliefs nor am I left really interested in finding out more about the Buddha: the asceticism that the Buddha preaches seems at odds to me with the figural abundance and sexual lasciviousness of the art. Just seems like a weird mismatch. 
      • The stories of the pre-Buddhas also are a bit like saints' lives, where the supposed Christian message in them can be hard to detect. Hard also to detect an ideological core in the stories of Buddha or the pre-Buddhas other than the triumph of Buddha, which isn't really something I can get behind.
    • Why no images of Buddha initially, and why a change later? ideological? there doesn't seem to be any other prohibition on the depiction of human beings, which is behind the aniconism of Islamic, Protestant, and Iconoclastic traditions.
    • Why were these religious sanctuaries later abandoned? I'm surprised they weren't destroyed or pillaged.

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