Abstract: This presentation focuses on the Buddhist clay-based sculpture, an important artistic phenomenon that spread across Central Asia between the 3rd and 8th centuries CE. This vast tradition, now represented by very fragmentary remains, mostly separated and removed from their original setting, were part of large polychrome decorative apparatuses. Among the pieces today housed in several museums throughout the world, different styles can be detected, as well as specific materials and techniques, but many aspects are still to be investigated. Depending on geographical areas of provenance and chronology, different workshops may possibly be identified based on the use of different types of clays (e.g. grey, yellow, red), sometimes in combination with lime or gypsum-based “stucco”, the latter often used only for the external layers of the sculpture. Faint traces – often not visible to the naked eye – testify to the original polychromy, suggesting how the colour palette offered a variety of possibilities. However, in spite of the increasing number of chemical-physical analyses conducted on samples available from museum exhibits and, at best, from excavated finds to understand the composition of the materials, little is known about their qualities and symbolic significance. The aim is to trace possible research paths for a more holistic approach to the study of this tradition, exploring not only physical features but also the cultural dimension created by and/or derived from the perception and feelings (conscious or unconscious) that the clay sculpture with its vivid polychromy might have evoked within the cultural framework in which it was produced.
eartHeritage – PRIN 2022JL5HLY
