Cathy's Art Diary

Interesting exhibition at the British Museum looking at the origins and visual development of Jainism, Buddhism and Hinduism. I felt the show was wrongly titled as a lot wasn’t ancient. I thought I’d read somewhere that it was about how India influenced Greece and Rome but I should have paid more attention to the subtitle. However I liked the way the show began with ancient sculptures from the three religions and ended with contemporary ones.   There were some beautiful objects and it was well explained but, as ever in large British Museum shows, the low wordy labels created bottle necks not helped by people who’d opted for the large print booklets of labels still standing in front on the label to read the booklet!   It did make me muse on how art, like standard archetypal human stories, develops in a similar way everywhere. A lot of the art and sculpture from around 1000AD had a feel of Norman art and a lot of the iconography felt similar like the use of halos.  ...

Interesting small interactive exhibition at the British Museum looking at the one of India’s largest and earliest Buddhist monuments. In the centre of the display was a relief carving of the shrine which was founded in 200 BC. The front of the relief showed what the shrine looked like and the back showed the Buddha evoked as an empty throne, a Bodhi tree and a pair of footprints, perhaps suggesting his liberation from the earthly realm. The site is now an archaeological site. There were two good interactive displays both operated by your mobile phone. There was a large picture of the relief with different elements highlighted which you could activate with your phone to hear more about the symbolism. The other was the large pictures of actors playing the pilgrims who visited the site and who had donated money for its construction and upkeep. Again you activated these with your phone and the figure came to life and told you their story. This was a great way to give a lo...