The Ancient India and Greece art was much influential to their cultures in the way they depicted their gods and the value of human being. The art was depicted as a medium of communication of their traditions and cultural values. Therefore, it can be depicted that the ancient sculptures and were used to preserve the major aspects and events of these two cultural platforms. The artists looked to their inspirations to the ancient styles hence giving rise to the classical art. The Indians learned part of the sculpturing techniques from the Greeks; an aspect that transformed the Greek art to the later ages.
Both the arts had different aspects in which they portrayed their gods and the human beings. However, the arts from both sides had converged portrayal of cultural issues that depicted similar topics of the gods and goddesses, human beliefs, royalty, myths and everyday life. The classical art from the Ancient Greek and India owes its lasting influence to its reasonableness and simplicity, its sheer beauty, its humanity in depicting the gods and the human being because these were the foundational grounds of the Hellenistic and the modern eras of art.
The sculptures from both sides differed in aspects ranging from the design, the materials and the information that the arts portrayed. For instance, the classical period marked the intensive use of gold and bronze in sculpturing the humans’ statutes among the Greeks, however, the Indians used plenty of gems and beads. On the other hand, the Greeks used pure stone (marble) while the Indians used valuable materials to construct the sculpture of their gods. These materials ensured strong sculptures that were not easy to break. A key example is the Riace bronzes from the Greek Museum that reveals the bronze as the main material used in these arts. However, the bronze statutes from both arts were hollow while the marble ones were non-hollow and solid and carefully designed not to break under their weight (Karakas, 2002).
The pose styles emerged with the classical era of arts; however, the Greek pose-styles for their sculptures of their gods and the humans were different from those of the Indians. Greek poses depicted realistic human forms that appeared to be more natural. Such pose styles among the Greek sculptures are seen in the Aristogeiton and the Harmodius arts that depict men who appeared to be courageous to overthrow the aristocratic tyranny. The poses reveal relaxed muscles and balanced oriented limbs indicating a fearless ruler within the Greek’s culture. On the other hand, the Indian sculptures reveal parted legs with the hands of the humans placed on the middle parts of their bodies, that are parted to support the sculptures as most of them were not made of marble. These features of the Indian arts are seen with most of the human sculptures of the Indus Valley Museums, India (Karakas, 2002).
These postures have a similar depiction of man’s image within the two cultural settings. Different cultural values are also depicted in the postures. For instance, both the sculptures reveal man at rest or in action posture to identify some cultural value of the man or the god. A key example is the funeral statuary sculpture of the Greeks that is found in Athens National Museum (Boardman, 1995). The sculpture reveals a human sculpture in action entailing a mother and her son. It depicts mourning mother and her dutiful son, therefore, the humans in such a case are revealed to typically show their respect to the departed members of their society.
On the other hand, the mighty Shiva sculpture in the Elephanta caves in India depicts a man being meditative to their gods. The sculpture by Ardhanarishvara depicts Shiva with a bi-sex face, indicating the essential unity of the Indian culture. Additionally, the image of Buddha was imparted in the human sculptures to emphasize on his divinity through the halo around the human sculptures. Moreover, the humans sculpture among the Indians had a dharmachakra that was engraved on the palms and a lion representing the royal ancestry within their cultural practices of the Buddha god (Maclaurin, 1997).
The divinity of Buddha among the Indians is revealed in the exquisite curvature of its hands, half-closed eyes and the soft folds of its dress. These aspects were different from the human sculptures as Buddha was believed to be the highest living god. The Greeks used white painting on the god sculptures to depict the holiness of their gods with a halo in their heads and a sword. For instance, god Hermes and god Apollo statutes among the Greeks are depicted to have these attributes that are associated with their holiness (Gappossy, 2009). Additionally, the lion alongside some sculptures of god Apollo among the Greeks is similar to the lion that is imparted in the Shiva Sculpture and both reveals the mighty power of the gods and the goddesses.
The comparison features for these two sculptures are the key roots of the Hellenistic era with the diversification of the Greek art and its diffusion to the Indian art industry. There are different aspects that converge from this comparison. For instance, the distinction between the gods’ and the human’s sculptures have been characterized by an increment of naturalism. Such an idea has led to the depicting of the holy places and temples within the art industry from where the humans worshiped their gods. These aspects led to the expression of human power such as humility and devotion to the mighty gods. All these facets have attributed to the modern artistic expression of man being a man of prayer (Karakas, 2002).
The modern arts and sculptures have been influenced by these ancient Greek and Indian works. They all reflected gods to be the giver of life and the protector, therefore, having the man with less power. Consequently, modern sculptures reveal humans being more respectful and a “seeker” of life. A modern sculpture entails the Gandhara (India) that reveals six men in their devotion practices showing respect to their Lord. Religion has had much influence on these traditional sculptures.
