All these pictures of Buddha images are a good occasion to talk (write, actually !) about Buddhism. Buddhism was founded by Siddhartha Gautama who probably lived between 563 and 483 B.C. He was raised within a palace to become the next king. But Siddhartha was confronted with 4 sights which had a great influence on him: an old disabled man, a very sick man, a family grieving the death of one of his members and an ascetic begging for food. The prince finally decided to leave the palace, against his father's will. He first became an ascetic before building his own new doctrine. In his first sermon, he taught the "4 truths": the "noble truth" that suffering does exist, the "noble truth" that suffering can be overcome, the "noble truth" that to fight suffering one must follow the "noble path with 8 branches" (just talking, just way of living, just behavior, just will, attention, concentration, just thinking and just intentions).
After his death, the believers' community soon divided itself into many branches. An important evolution was the belief of the transcendence of Buddha: he was never born nor died and his life on Earth was just pure illusion. This finally lead to the creation of the Mahayana sect which separated from the more traditional Theravada branch. Both branches do share the same non-violent and tolerance principles. The differences are subtle questions of intensity and interpretation. Theravada Buddhism is based on Pali texts while Mahayana texts are later Sanskrit versions. Most differences are caused by the Mahayana emphasis on devotion and compassion, while Theravada is a more intellectual, self-centered version of Buddhism, focused on the individual quest of wisdom.
Artistically, Burma was firstly tremendously influenced by India. Bagan Buddha statues, for instance, have a very Indian look. The culture of the Mon, who played a great role in the construction of the famous Burmese city, was deeply influenced by India. After the fall of Bagan, the Buddha images took a more Thai-looking style. It's only with the 13th century that a typically Burmese representation of Buddha emerged: finger and toes of similar length, ears reaching down to the shoulders, specific background patterns (lotus, flames). At the end of the 18th century, style changed once again: fingers and toes went back to different length, cloths became looser.
Gilding Buddha images is a Burmese specialty. This is commonly done in groups of family and friends going to the monastery to gain some merit. Gilding a Buddha is the commoner's equivalent to the building of a pagoda by a king (which is seen as the best way to gain merit, an enlightening explanation to the amazing number of pagoda/temples that dot the Bagan plain: the lifestyle of the kings of the times was so brutally cruel that they definitely needed to build at least a couple of pagodas each!)