Kushan art

Various sculptures and friezes are known representing horse-riding archers and, significantly, men with artificially deformed skulls, such as the Kushan prince of Khalchayan (a practice well attested in nomadic Central Asia).

[15] According to Benjamin Rowland, the styles and ethnic type visible in Kalchayan already anticipate the characteristics of the later Art of Gandhara and may even have been at the origin of its development.

[14] Rowland particularly draws attention to the similarity of the ethnic types represented at Khalchayan, in the art of Gandhara, and in the style of portraiture itself.

[16] A monumental sculpture of King Kanishka I has been found in Mathura in northern India, which is characterized by its frontality and martial stance, as he holds firmly his sword and a mace.

[1][16] As the Kushans gradually assimilated into Indian society, their attire became lighter and their depictions more natural, moving away from frontal representation.

[16] The characteristics of early Kushan art in depicting the Buddha can be ascertained through the study of several statues bearing dated inscriptions.

[25] The Kushans standardized the symbolism of these early Buddha statues, developing their attributes and aesthetic qualities in an exuberant manner and on an unprecedentedly large scale.

[28][29] The art of Mathura became extremely influential over the rest of India, and was "the most prominent artistic production center from the second century BCE".

Although several are dated to the 2nd century CE, they often tend to display characteristics that would become the hallmark of Gupta art, especially the very thin dress seemingly sticking to the body of the Buddha.

Along with almost all the major cult icons Visnu, Siva, Surya, Sakti and Ganapati, a number of subsidiary deities of the faith were given tangible form in Indian art here for the first time in an organized manner.

In view of this and for the variety and multiplicity of devotional images then made, the history of Mathura during the first three centuries of the Christian era, which coincided with the rule of the Kusanas, can very well be called revolutionary in the development of Brahmanical sculpture"Cult images of Vāsudeva continued to be produced during the period, the worship of this Mathuran deity being much more important than that of Vishnu until the 4th century CE.

[53] Statues dating to the 2nd and 3rd centuries show a possibly four-armed Vāsudeva standing with his attributes: the wheel, the mace, and the conch, his right hand saluting in Abhaya mudra.

[53] During this time, statues of Gopala-Krishna, the other main component of the amalgamated Krishna, are absent from Mathura, suggesting the near absence of this cult in northern India down to the end of the Gupta period (6th century CE).

[56] The famous "Caturvyūha" statue in Mathura Museum is an attempt to show in one composition Vāsudeva as the central deity together with the other members of the Vrishni clan of the Pancharatra system emanating from him: Samkarsana, Pradyumna, and Aniruddha, with Samba missing.

[57] Various dedications in the name of Kushan kings, such as Vasudeva I, with dates, appear on fragments of Jain statuary discovered in Mathura.

[82] This could be due either to direct cultural exchanges between the area of Mesopotamia and the Kushan Empire at that time, or from a common Parthian artistic background leading to similar types of representation.