Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 10.djvu/648

* INDIAN AET. 566 INDIAN ART. The Renaissance character of some of the orna- mentation is startling, in quality of detail the An^'kor buildings arc unsurpassed in India. In .lava, also, there is an iiitcie.-ting olfshoot of liuddhist art. Its chef-d'tt'UVic is the famous Boro-Buddor (q.v.), built in the seventh century, a perfect ejjitome of liuddhist art before its fall. It is a stupa or dagoba in seven stories, ap- proached by live processional piitlis, along which are seventy-two small domes surmounting sepa- rate dagobas which surround the central one. Nothing like this remains in Northern India among liuddhist monuments, so that for compari- son one nuist go to liandara, in the Northwest, to Jamalgiri and Takht-i-Uahi, which arc its proto- types. Still another little-explored region is the island of Cevlon. which also contains a mass of liuddhist monuments. The anciciil cajiital. Anuradhapura, is unique among liuddhist cities in having a se- ries of monuments ijluslrating tliis cult through- out nearly a niilleiinium, it liaviiig lasted here for centuries after lirahmanism had displaced it on the mamland. There remain seven separate stupas, with processional paths, as in Java. Two of these stupas have three rows of high columns surrounding the central mound, monoliths about 26 feet high, reminding of the columns of a Per- sian palace. There is but little scilpture used in the decoration, and in some of it the lines of hieratic animals give additional points of rc- Bemblance to Western Asia. Moii.MMEn.x Style. The superb Moham- medan architecture of India is treated under AIoii.vM.MKiiAN Art. It belongs to two stages — the Afghan and the Mongol. In some cases, as at Ahmedabad, the fusion with pure Indian art is so thorough as to leave only part of the credit to imported ideas from Persia and Bagdad. But at Delhi and liijapur the style is fundamen- tally foreign. DECORATIVE ART.S. Oenkhal Character. The religious character of Indian art is quite as prominent in other branches as it is in architecture. A knowledge of the intricacies of the Hindu pantheon is a necessary prerequisite to the study of the sculp- ture and painting, the pottery and even the lac- quers, bronzei, and goldsmith work. There is lit- tle iesthetic value to the rejiresentations of the human figure in India : they interest in the mass, as decoration: and for their subject, as illustra- tive material for the study of Indian thought. The endless repetition of the same theme in the same monument is characteristic of its symbolic use, as it is, indeed, of the Oriental spirit. This impersonal character has favored the extraordi- nary tenacity of tradition and continuity of Btyie still to be observed in the various prov- inces. This has been made possible by the heredi- tary nature and continuous life and organization of the different crafts, not only in the guilds of the cities, but especially in the groups of arti- sans which, organized as guilds, have for some 3000 years formed an integral part of the village cominunities of India, supplying its inhabitants by perpetual contract. TTie sumptuary arts fos- tered by the aristocracy naturally flourished in the cities and not in these village communities. Although originality vanished centuries ago. no ftmdamental damage had been inflicted on Indian arts until under British rule the incongruous architecture of Europe, the degrading methods of machine manufactures came into fashion in place of the native methods of hand work. This tenacity makes it possible to study some of the methods of antique art in modern India, because the continuous overland trade during anti<|uily and the Middle Ages kept India in constant re- lations with Persia, Babyhmia, and Assyria, E^ypt, and the late Hclliiiic Stales after Alex ander's lime, and later with the Mohammedan powers. The stepped temples of liaylonia, the filigree gold jewelry of Ktruria and (ireece. the en- ameled tiles of Persia, the products of the looms of Mesopotamia, and, later, the arts of the Mo- hammedans of Kgypt, .Syria, and Persia, were all echoed in India, with greater or less purity. Yet there was always enough of a transformation to give an as|)ect of Hindu unity to whatever was borrowed. Indian art has always been full of .a character of its own. Its greatest suciesscs lave been in its decorative work, both on a small scale and in masses, and in the imposing com- l^ositions of its architecture. Its failures are due to a poor sense of form both in line and coni- pcsition. SciLiTiRE. The three centuries before and af- ter the Christian Kra saw the development, under Buddhist influence, of the most artistic sch(K>ls of sculpture that India ever saw. In certain parts of the North and Northwest, especially, there are strong traces of Creek and Persian in- fluences, as in several monuments of the region of Peshawar. The famous Asoka edict-pillars and the encircling marble rails of the Buddhist topes of Bharhut. Buddha Cava, and Sanchi (Bhilsa), all belong to the earliest stage (c.250-200 B.C.). Somewhat later are the rich series of the Amra- vati type and the sculptures of the earliest cave temples of EUora, Kanheri. and Ajanta. The Buddhist style was continued in Ceylon after it had decayed on the mainland, as is shown at Anuradhapura. Most of these sculptures can be studied in the South Kensington Museum (Lon- don) or the Indian Museum (Calcutta), and in the British Museum and the Madras JIuseum. The subordination of sculpture to architecture is evident even at this early period: the human fjg lire, though used in colossal siz.e in statues and high reliefs, especially in representations of Bud- dha, is usually in rather minute proportions, and in confused and intricate compositions. Line upon line of reliefs are superposed, in which architer tural detail and decorative design play an impor- tant part. The rock-cut figures of the caves arc hardly as delicate as the earlier sculptures of the rails or the later work on the open-air temples. The almost classic .style of Mutlra, of which echoes even survive at Amravati, is gradu ally replaced by one given to grotesque and exag geraled forms: the female figtirc especially is treated with undue emphasis. No ideal types were created. The prevalent realism expressed itself more successfully in animal forms, which were plentifully interwoven with human and decorative motifs. After the decay of Buddhist art, sculpture did not revive till the .Jaina period of the eleventh centur>', whose temples at Gwalior, Mount Abu, and Khn juraho show the existence of a style of exquisite delicacy and profuse richness. Every Iiart of the surface of the temples at Mount Abu, b(th within and without, is carved, and the later style of Hindu sculptures finds here its proto- tjTpe. Horizontal lines are emphasized: decora-