Studies in Indian Art c8.s1.t4.2

c8.s1.t4.2

In contrast to the formal and stiff style of the above, two pieces from Harappa found in by Vats and Sahni are of such outstanding aesthetic value and anatomical perfection that they have caused as much gladdening of heart amongst true art-lovers as flutter amongst stolid archaeologists, who look upon them with an uneasy eye against all evidence furnished by the find-spot, material, technique and unique style. The one, a male torso (3·75") of red coloured fine lime-stone (Fig. 20), and the other, a female dancer (3·9") of dark lime-stone having soft effiminate charm show a rare sensitiveness and skilful modelling unparallel in the stone art of the ancient world (Figs. 14 a & b). The sealed levels in which they were exposed with other associate finds of protohistoric age cancels all doubt about their being exotic, as confirmed by Vats and Marshall. The particular stone of which they are made was being imported in the Indus Valley from an unknown source and used for many other objects found there, but not a single figurine or object of the same material has been found in historical art. The evidence of technique is even more forceful as being in favour of the two statues being indigenous to the Indus Valley, e.g., the holes in the shoulders and neck for attaching moveable arms and head and the use of a tubular drill to make them, not known elsewhere. Their style also is distinctive and incomparable with any other thing that we know either in the East or in the West. This solid evidence about their origin accords well with the fact that the excellence of carving observed in these two figurines was well within the competence of the master engravers who have created wonderful figures of bulls on the steatite seals.