35
sfone of various coiours. It was not until later thal Islamic art
also took over the Hindu enthusiasm for luxuriant plant forms
and created lotus pillars, lotus domes and arches wreathed in
tlowers.
Sculpture and Painting
Architecture alone thus opened an exceptionally wide tield to
the sculptor and painter. In addition Ihere were the bronze
statues for use in processions, innumerable small figures of house-
hold gods, ciay figures for various feasfs (fhese were subsequently
thrown info the water), idols and foys of boked clay, terracotta
reliefs for the smaller femples, tips for Standards decorated with
figures, mirrors, jeweller's work and so on. For their pari, the
painters had not only fo decorate the walls of the temples,
palaces and courtisans' houses with trescoes from the myths and
epics, but also had to illusfrate manuscripts of palm-leaf and
later, of paper, and to execufe porfraits on wooden plaques
and paper and larger painfings on cotfon cloth.
The sculptor in stone generally designed his figure first on the
outside of the sfone with a brush betöre setting to work with his
chisel. For the temples, statues and reliefs were not let in: affer
the stonemason had roughed fhem out, fhey were worked straight
out of the wall. For this reason the easily transportable religious
figures (murti) are found far more frequently in our museums than
other sculpture, far more common but almosf irremovable. Bronze,
mixed from eight metals, and later brass was cast by the cire-
perdu process. Paintings were executed direct on the wall, using
the fresco-secco technique, or palnfed on a thin layer of chalk
over the very rough paper, using stone or vegetable coiours.
Although fhey were familiär with drawing from nalure, the
artisfs nevertheless generally worked from memory, idealised the
figures and stylised fhem in poses and gestures taken from the art
of dancing. The vifality of Indian figure work is traceable on Ihe
one hand to frank and tactile sensualify, on the other hand to a
sfrongly expressive rhythm and an equally sensitive reproduction
of mood by the attitude of body, head and hands and a noble,
if somefimes insipid facial expression. Coarse realism, offen
exaggerated into the grotesque, was perfectly well known, but
was only used for populär scenes, demons, and so on. Usually
the landscape was only hinted at, but from the seventeenth
Century, under European influence, it was given in greater detail.
Ol the ancient painting, only fragmenfs have been preserved, af
Bagh, Ajanta (Cat. 341—352), Badami, Kancipura, Sittanvasal,
etc., or engraved on metal or stone; from the Middle Ages, as
well as the frescoes of Tanjore, Lepakshi, Kanci, etc., we also
have Buddhist and Jaina palm-leaf manuscripts. The great
majority of Works sfill available originale from the period since
the lifteenth Century, especially from fhe seventeenth Io fhe
ninefeenth Century. Alongside historical porfraits and frequently
unique illusfrated Persian and Hindi Works, certain sets of pic-
fures recur almost regularly; a few populär religious books, like
the Bhagavata-Purana and Devi-Mahafmya, the Hindu Epics, the
Gifagovinda (the Indian "High Song"), the Rasikpriya of Kesha-
vadas (a collecfion of erofic poems), hymns and music illus-
Irations (Ragmala); these in the ninefeenth Century made up
the library of every nobleman's home.
Iconographic Symbolism
The artisfs took from the art of dancing a fixed Canon of atli-
ludes (sthana), seated poses (asana), arm positlons (hasfa) and
hand gestures (mudra), of which each, either by ilself or in
conjunction with another, bore a parlicular meaning, so thal the
hand-play builds up the danced pantomime into a complete
Story, even confaining psychological undertones. The affitudes
are characterised by sirong body-bending movements (dvib-
hanga, tribhanga, samabhanga) Inspired by women carrying
children or water-pofs on the hip. The highly complicaied foot-
work does not sfart at fhe loes buf af fhe heel, a result of
wearing open sandals. The sealed poses include a represenlation
of langour (lalita), meditation (yoga), feaching (pralambapada),
attack (alidha), efc. The hand gestures indicate protection
(bhaya), prayer (anjali), holding (ardhachandra, kataka), medi
tation (jnana, yoga), threatening (tarjani), giving (varada),
explaining (vitarka), preaching (oyakhyana), and others. Thus,
with the addition of characteristic cosfumes, crowns (kirifa-
mukuta, royal crown; jata-mukufa, ascetic's hair-style; karanda-
mukuta and kundula-bandha, hair-style for goddesses and queens
and so on), and jewelry, especially fhe large belfs (makhala)
nearly every lype of human being or god could be indicafed.
Many arms expressed divine power, many heads divine omni-
science. This was nof regarded as freakish because fhe person
of a god was not experienced as anafomical reality buf as a
Vision (Sadhana); in good Indian works of art, Iherefore, many
arms never give the effecl of a single physical mass but as the
