The Development of Hindu Iconography c15.2

Language: English

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It has already been briefly mentioned in the fifth chapter that the Indian sculptors used to follow certain rules of proportions in the making of images. I have criticised the view that the stereotyping of these rules and their adoption by the artists lay at the root of the gradual decadence of Indian iconoplastic art. These canons were really the results of the accumulated experience of generations of artists; if they were judiciously followed, they would not have been injurious to art. T. A. G. Rao, who was responsible for the above view criticised by me, himself observes, ‘. . . the rules arrived at by the Indian artists do not appear to be divergent from those evolved by the European artists, and if in Indian sculpture the results are not good in some instances it is the fault of the artists and not attributable to the guide books’ (Elements, etc., Vol. I, App. B, p. 8; italics are mine). In some of the compilations containing these rules, it is expressly laid down that the divine images must not only be well-proportioned but must also be good-looking; the image-maker should visualise in his mind’s eye the god to be represented in concrete and then should fashion him according to his mental perception, for these images are really the aids to the attainment of dhyānayoga (Dhyānayogasya saṃsiddhyai pratimālaKṣaṇaṃ smṛtam | Pratimākārako marttyo yathādhyānarato bhavet—Śukranītisāra, IV, 147).

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But as very few sculptors could be successful in turning out really beautiful images (Sarvāṅgaiḥ sarvaramyo hi kaścillakṣe prajāyate), it would be better that all divine images conform to the correct proportions as laid down in the śāstras, for ‘beautiful is that image which is made according to the canons detailed in the śāstras,—no other is so’ (Śastramānena yo ramyaḥ sa ramyo nānya eva hi). The practice of stereotyping these rules of proportions in the fashioning of human figures was not peculiar to the Indian artists alone, but was also adopted by many ancient nations of the world. W. W. Hyde says, ‘The doctrine of human proportions is very ancient, originating in Egyptian art.’¹ The first canon employed by the Egyptians in the time of the Ancient Empire, ‘divides an erect human figure over 18 squares, the highest of which ends, not at the top of the head, but at the top of the brow, thus leaving the dome of the skull outside, as well as the head-dresses or crowns which the Egyptian monuments display in such great variety.’² Hyde remarks very properly that the greatest artists—architects, painters and sculptors of all times have taught and practised the doctrine that certain proportions are beautiful, *e.g.*, the proportion of the height of the head or the length of the foot to the whole body.³ In modern times, we have only to mention such names as those of da Vinci, Duerer, Raphael and Flaxman.

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In Greek days there were many artists who formulated such canons of proportions. I have already stated that there were different schools of sculptors in ancient Hellas such as Old Attic, Old Argive, Polyclitan, Argive, Sicyonian or Lysippan, *etc.*, which were distinguished from one another on the basis of the fixed proportions of the parts of the human figure. These proportions were written down by subsequent artists and art-historians for the help and guidance of later sculptors and painters. E. A. Gardner tells us that ‘*theoretical* works upon the principles of sculpture were written by several of the most distinguished artists of antiquity; but none of these have been preserved to us. . . . Later compilers have recorded many opinions or statements, often without acknowledgement which we can trace with more or less certainty to these lost treatises.¹ Polyclitus, who flourished in the 5th century B.C. and was most probably a pupil of Ageladas of Argos, was one of the first to write such a work dealing with the proportions of the body; he embodied these rules in a sculpture named as the ‘Doryphorus’ (the treatise as well as the sculpture was described in the Greek works on art as the *Canon*). Euphranor, the Corinthian, who flourished in the fourth century B.C. and who was both a sculptor and a painter, also wrote upon colouring and proportion;

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his study of proportion seems to indicate at once an imitation of Polyclitus and a departure from his *Canon*.² In the Hellenistic age such treatises became quite common, and this fact was not a little due to the influence of the great artist of this age, Lysippus, one of the most prolific sculptors of ancient Hellas. He was looked upon by the later Hellenistic artists and art-critics as the most academic of sculptors; he revolutionised the system of proportions adopted by his predecessors such as Polyclitus and others and introduced many technical innovations and improvements which he derived from a direct and thorough study of nature. The activities of the two artists of the Pergamene school, *viz*., Antigonus and Xenocrates (3rd-2nd century B.C.), who were both writers on art and practical sculptors, can be directly traced to the school of Lysippas. They ‘are cited by Pliny as authorities; and very probably their works commonly served as a basis for the treatises of the later writers’ (E. A. Gardner, *op. cit.*, p. 2). Most of the artists mentioned above not only made figures of mere mortal men such as the Greek athletes, where they could display their keen sense of modelling the human body, but also fashioned divine images, such as those of Zeus, Hera, Nike, Aphrodite and a host of other Greek deities.

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It is needless to state that in the latter class of sculptures also, the artists followed certain canons of proportions, according to the tradition of their respective schools. I have stated in the first chapter of this book that secular images used also to be made in ancient and mediæval India. A. N. Tagore thinks that the canons of proportions which are incorporated in ancient and mediæval Indian *Śilpaśāstras* were only applicable in the case of images intended for worship and the artist was ‘free in all other cases, to follow his own art instinct.’¹ Such might or might not have been the case; but it is more probable that in their secular images also, the Indian artists, like the Greek and Egyptian ones, followed some recognised rules of proportions.