This video explores China’s earliest dated sculpture of the Buddha: a gilded, or gold-finished, bronze statue dated to 338 CE in the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. The earliest visual images of the Buddha were transmitted to China by travelers along the ancient Silk Roads, a network of maritime and overland trade routes across Afro-Eurasia. Starting in the late 2nd century CE, local artisans in China produced their own images and sculptures of the Buddha using foreign images as models. Using comparative analysis, we show how China’s gilded Buddha statue was inspired by Greco-Buddhist art.

Speaker: Dr. Cortney Chaffin Kim