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“The changes in the field of art from the Kushana period to early medieval period are mere reflection of changing outlook” Comment.

  • UPSC 2016
  • Themes in Early Indian Cultural History

The half-millennium between the Kushanas and the early medieval period saw Indian art move from the hybrid naturalism of Gandhara and Mathura, through the classical restraint of Gupta sculpture, to the ornate, regionally fragmented, and increasingly Tantric-inflected idioms of the post-Gupta centuries. The claim that this entire sequence is "mere" reflection of a changing religious…

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What the full answer covers

  • Kushana Art: Two Parallel Idioms
  • The Gupta Synthesis: Classical Idealism
  • Early Medieval Divergence: Regionalism, Ornamentation, and Tantra
  • Weighing the Claim: Where "Changing Outlook" Genuinely Explains the Shift
  • Weighing the Claim: Where Material and Patronage Factors Do Independent Work

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