Ancient India: living traditions – 'ethereal and sensual' exhibition

About 2,000 years ago, art on the Indian subcontinent underwent "a stunning transformation", said Jonathan Jones in The Guardian.

Where it had previously been "enigmatically abstract", it started to become "incredibly accomplished at portraying the human body – and soul". This extraordinary cultural development, pioneered by Buddhist artisans, is the subject of this exhibition at the British Museum, which examines the region's devotional art reaching back more than 2,000 years, and tells "a passionate story about the three great religions of ancient India – Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism – and their vitality across time".

Featuring around 180 objects (sculptures, paintings, manuscripts and drawings), it is filled with treasures, from a miraculous statue of the elephant-headed Hindu deity Ganesha to a silk painting of the Buddha "set in a dreamworld of deep reds and greens". All three faiths are, of course, still practised by millions worldwide today: videos of contemporary worshippers help to "blast the museum dust off" this ancient art, and give a "sense of its living power". "Ethereal and sensual", this is a fabulous event.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Given its vast geographical scope, the show feels remarkably "compact", said Nancy Durrant in The Times. Separated into four sections and "accompanied by a soundtrack of temple bells and birdsong", it shows how imagery initially developed in the worship of "nature spirits" worked its way first into Jainism, then Buddhism – both of which appeared in India about 2,500 years ago – and finally into Hinduism.

The objects themselves are "gorgeous": we see much "lively, expressive, dynamic sculpture", from "rudimentary" yakshas and yakshis (small terracotta statuettes of male and female spirits), to a "skilful, intricate" depiction of a Jain goddess of knowledge "wielding a pen and a palm-leaf manuscript".

The "rich devotional art" of any of these three religions could easily merit its own show, said Alastair Sooke in The Telegraph. It's a shame, then, that they have been bundled into a single package here, in a way that is often confusing. The contextual notes fail to address "simple, nuts-and-bolts questions". We don't learn why the Buddha was frequently depicted with "elongated ears" or, in the early days, using symbols such as footprints; nor why female deities were sometimes represented "semi-nude" even when wielding objects associated with knowledge.

Elsewhere, important subjects – such as the art of Gandhara in present-day Pakistan and Afghanistan, where a "fascinating fusion" of Greco-Roman and south Asian influences took hold – are "short-changed". Unfortunately, though the subject matter is fascinating, "this isn't, by any stretch, a vintage show". I left feeling "frustrated, disappointed, even cross".