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| Home > Materials Of Sculpture > Bronze Sculptures > Cultural Significance of Bronze Sculptures
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| | Cultural Significance of Bronze Sculptures
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Many Indian Bronze miniatures were made mainly in India over a period of spanning eleven hundred years. And the main purpose behind the preparation of them was for worshiping. Therefore, these Bronze sculptures were used at every possible place such as in temples or in private worshiping as household shrines and by pilgrims.
 These images of god & goddess were intended to remind people about spiritual truths and sacred stories and to function as an important aids to meditation. Every idol of god followed particular forms and dimensions those represented each deity in its attributions as per the local cultural. All parts and attributes such as the position of the body, the emblems and ornaments, and the accompanying minor divinities have cultural significance. Most of the sculptures in Bronze portray a variety of deities mentioned in the India`s Hindu pantheon and heroes of the Indian epic such as Ramayana and Mahabharata.
The cultural significance of these objects is more important. Not only in India but also in Asia, the Bronze statues are used to serve as an aid in the process of meditation.
Up till the extent of the knowledge and level of perception of meditation, a practitioner will be able to interpret the meaning and significance of such an image. In meditation, it is necessary that the practitioner have to perform mudras with repeating various mantras. During this time, they try to visualize a particular deity in order to bring a meditative state in order to reach to a desired state of consciousness.
So, every artist tries to create a sacred statue in his mind, which should convey a meditation experience that is similar to those who observe the statue with open eyes. The visual Bronze sculptures indicating god`s images are therefore internal experiences in meditation, as well as an attempt to guide others towards the same experiences.
The stylized position of various parts of the body like arms, hands and fingers plays a vital role in giving the Bronze images an aesthetic excellence. While discussing on these icons, the sculptor Auguste Rodin had written:
`The image of Nataraja can well contest for superiority in gracefulness with the gestures of Venus de Medici, who defends her charm by the arm, whilst Shiva does the same by an ingenious gesture`
 Any goddess that is presented in Bronze sculpture signifies the belief of people that was resulted from a cultural set up of the society. For example: Indian Bronze figure of Kali represents one of the Hindu goddess, who governs the entire world and stops time, the embodiment of the force of destruction.
People strongly believe, everything they receive comes from her and she devours everything. The feeling of respecting Kali as an icon of the `shakti` i.e. divine power illustrates the above point. But the Goddess Kali also has a manifestation or an another form of Devi as a consort of Shiva, known as Parvati. So, Bronze sculptures Showing Shiva & Parvati together are found but with it two forms of Kali are also sculptured in a single sculpture gives the idea of cultural context of presenting gods in India.
 All the sculptures in Bronze denote the contemporary artistic tradition. In accordance with this view, the Bronze creations from Chola dynasty had promoted the sculptures of Buddhist and Jainism. But the fact is non-of these religions came close to meet prominence of Hinduism. Then too their expressions or the art of carving in sculpture reveal the bronzes` cultural rather than religious influences. This can be demonstrated by marking similarities in carving facial features and techniques used for gaining smoothing effect from sculptors of different religion.
So,even many small details like the position of the fingers in the whole figure should be so that each takes its own elegant place in space, and attributes should appear playfully between them. The figures that are having non-religious context, the gestures were considered more significant & grace, and tenderness was entirely achieved in carving e.g. figures of elephants.
As revealed by the selection of sacred Bronze images from the history, these unique Bronzes sculpture were originally produced to achieve a spiritual experience, but they are conveying a deeper meaning beyond the physical sculpture itself.
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