Page:The Industrial Arts of India.djvu/141

 composition is painted in a l fresco, and the figures of the foreground in a tempera. When the plaster is etched, in a manner resembling the pavimentum smlpturatum, the work is called sgraffito. The term encaustic painting, now used only for the painting of glazed tiles, was first applied to a tempera painting, in which the vehicle of the colours used was was, spread over the surface of the stucco with a heated iron, or ff actual cautery”

Sandalwood and other Wood Carving

Sandalwood carving is chiefly carried on in the Bombay Pre- sidency, at Surat, Ahmedabad, Bombay, and Canara; and in the Madras Presidency, in Mysore and Tra van core. It is applied to the same articles as the Bombay inlaid work. Indeed the generic term Bombay boxes ” includes the sandalwood carving of Ah cne- dabad, Surat, and Bombay, as well as inlaid wood ; but wood carv ing is a far superior art to inlaying, and in India is as ancient as the temple architecture and the carved idols in which it pro- bably originated. The Surat and Bombay work is in low relief, and the designs consist almost entirely of foliated ornament ; the Canara and Mysore work [Plate 59] is in high relief, the subjects being chiefly mythological ; and the Ahmedabad work [Plate 60 j, while in flat relief, is deeply cut, and the subjects are mixed floral and mythological ; for instance, Krishna and the Copies, repre- sented not architecturally as in Canara carving, but naturally, disporting themselves in a luxuriant wood, in which each tree, while treated conventionally, and running into the general floral decoration, can be distinctly recognised, A line is drawn below the wood, and through the compartment thus formed a river is represented flowing, as on Greek coins, by an undulating band, on which tortoises, fishes, and water-fowl are carved in half relief. The best Canara carving comes from Compta, and the best u 2