Hindu Sculpture Collection

In the Hindu tradition, gods, goddesses, “deities” or spiritual powers are most commonly portrayed in an anthropomorphic or zoomorphic manner. They are most commonly depicted to resemble people, animals and so forth, and are constructed to express their super-human abilities. More than one head, more than just a pair of arms or feet, with the heads of creatures, fantastic combinations of humans and animals – all this and more is the in the tradition of Hindus depicting their gods and goddesses. Probably a billion Hindus pray to the forms of their gods and goddesses, believing that by focusing on their divine forms they can attract their attention, receive boons, or even “become like them”, awakening the gods and spiritual powers within.

Hindus have been creating images of their gods, goddesses and heroes for more than four millennium. Since the Indus Valley culture, whose artists modeled human and animal figures in clay and wood and stone, all done with unmistakable style, there has been a wide range of techniques and ways that Hindu sculpture has been created. Overall, Hindu sculptors very quickly saw and developed mastery of the “plastic” inherent in the living forms. Hindu sculpture is as if alive, filled with prana or life-force, the surface with “plasticity”, potent with inferred movement.

Hindu sculpture has long been recognized as created by sculptors with brilliant understanding of composition supported by masterful technique. What an eye these sculptors had!! Whether done in low relief, as a panel or frieze, in high relief, as a stele against a back slab, free-standing or in the round, Hindu sculptures express a wealth of artistic vision brought into reality, made solid, fixed, frozen in time.

This collection of Hindu sculpture, mostly done in sandstone of different types and colors, includes great examples in the unmistakable reddish mottled sandstone from Mathura, as well as from other parts of central and northern India. Additionally there is sculpture done in unusual stone from Indonesia, as well as excellent examples of from baked clay (terra-cotta).

Sometimes Hindu sculpture is just the eloquent artistic expression of pure form; or realistic portrayal of a subject true to life; or an expression of emotion in stone, terra-cotta, wood or cast metal; the visionary rendering of a myth or event; at times simple, at other times intricate, surreal or even super-normal. Hindu sculpture tells it all.