GREEK AND CHINESE ART IDEALS 21 



deity of the Buddhist pantheon, the Goddess of Mercy and 

 Love, the giver of children, which has inspired some of the 

 most beautiful conceptions in Chinese Buddhist art. 

 Singularly enough this later Kwanyin in porcelain figures of 

 the Kanghsi and following periods closely resembles in 

 form the Christian virgin and child, probably as a result of 

 the influence of images brought from Europe by the early 

 catholic missionaries. 



Gr^co-Buddhist Art. 



The so-called Graeco -Buddhist art, which is best 

 exemplified in the rock sculptures of the first and second 

 centuries A.D. at Gandhara in the valley of the Kabul 

 river, North of India, may be regarded as a very interesting 

 indirect impingement of the two civilisations, but its effect 

 on Chinese art is very small indeed. 



In the fourth century B.C., Alexander the Great, a 

 pupil of Aristotle, having cut the Gordian Knot, set out 

 on his amazing conquest of Asia, sweeping victoriously 

 through Syria, Palestine, Egypt, and Persia to India (Kabul) 

 and Turkestan (Khotan), leaving a fragment of the Grecian 

 Empire at Bactria (Bokhara), where a school of Greek 

 sculpture is said to have been founded. Alexander 

 accomplished all this by the age of 32, when he died of 

 fever in Babvlon. 



At Gandhara may be seen the transition of Apollo* into 

 the Indian Buddha. The long thin legs, salient hips and 

 flexible figures of the Gandhara rock sculptures found their 

 way to Java, Cambodia, China and Japan. This influence, 

 carried by Indian Buddhist missionaries, may easily be 

 traced among the rock sculptures at Lung-men near 

 Honan-fu in China, dating from the sixth century A.I). 

 The frequent use of the lion as a model and the exaggerated 

 muscular development of the nude figures clearly show this 

 exotic Indian so-called Greeco-Buddhist influence. This 

 Grecian touch seems to have come to India indirectly 

 through Persia. 



That the Greek fret or key pattern is common to Greek 

 and Chinese art does not seem to be a matter of significance. 

 This simple border pattern is one, like the svastika, which 

 any schoolboy would be likely to happen upon. It is, 

 therefore, like the square and the circle, in practically 

 universal use and cannot be considered peculiar to any 

 country, although it comes more into prominence in China 

 because it is par excellence the country of fretted designs. 



