Studies in Indian Art c2.4

c2.4

Indian artists were, no doubt, interested in beautiful forms and aesthetic problems. They handled a vast and varied repertoire of geometrical, floral, arborial, animal and human forms but their greatest interest or appeal was to the divine figures, a rich pantheon of gods and goddesses who filled the centre of the picture and whose endless glory and great splendour was of real interest to human beings. Nothing affords greater pleasure to the Indian art critic than to feel divine presence of great gods like Rudra-Śiva, and Viṣṇu, of goddesses like Śrī-Lakṣmī and Pārvatī or such divine personages as Buddha and Tīrthaṅkara. This calls for a new approach both in the art connoisseur or the sculptor or painter. The papers collected here just make the first attempt to invoke this point of view.