Buddha and Alexander the Great
€ 3.00Two diametrically opposed figures, two opposite ways of living one’s life, two totally different cultures far apart from each other in time. Buddha Sakyamuni, the son of a king, lived in India around the 5th century BC. He conceived a system of mystical practices to end human suffering through introspection that leads to a moral life, respect for all living beings and salvation from the cycle of reincarnation. Alexander, also the son of a king, lived two centuries later and, arrogant and restless, conquered the East becoming a legend for very different populations. This fortuitous interconnection would give rise to a very successful graft of civilisations, religions, culture, art and trade. An extraordinary mixture of ideas and styles, told though the images of Gandhara art, stemming from Hellenic-Roman art, absorbing Middle Eastern and central Asian influences, ending up by defining the image of the Buddha in the style of a Roman emperor.
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John Eskenazi is one of the most highly regarded scholars of South Asian religious art. In the early 1990s, he opened a gallery in London specialising in Indian sculptures from Gandhara, the Himalayas and South-East Asia, contributing to the establishment of important private collections and providing works to over forty museums all over the world.
He has published many essays and curated exhibitions in his galley and for museums worldwide. The most recent examples include: in 2004 Hunt for Paradise: Court Arts of Safavid Iran (Asia Society di New York); A caccia in Paradiso. Arte di corte nella Persia del Cinquecento (Museo Poldi Pezzoli and Palazzo Reale, Milan); in 2006 Chola: Sacred Bronzes of Southern India (Royal Academy of London); in 2012, the oriental section of Bronze (London Royal Academy). He has performed in depth studies of the different influences on Gandhara art, which were not just Hellenic but also linked to the Silk Route and middle-eastern civilisations.
John Eskenazi & i Dialoghi
2017
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