DIONYSUS, DRAMA, AND THE DHAMMA

Naturalistic art – a style that strives to accurately depict the natural world – is recognized as having the ability to tap into human neurobiology like no other art style. Naturalistic art offers vicarious experiences, emotional journeys experienced in our imaginations through viewing life-like representations. These figurative scenarios, in turn, teach us valuable lessons about ourselves and the universe. As Alexander created his empire, he established cities that blended Greco-Macedonian culture with that of the local population. Perhaps most illustratively, the city of Ai Khanoum exhibits the remnants of a tantalizing culture that melded local Bactrian, Persian, and Greek elements to form a strikingly unique culture. In Gandhara, after Alexander’s death and the eclipse of the Greco-Macedonian successor states by the Scythians, Parthians, and Kushans, the vestiges of this hybrid…