Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c16.44

c16.44

The decoration on all these brick buildings, whether in the dry zone of Sindh or the humid plain of the Ganges, was of the same general character, due largely to the nature of the material of which they were constructed. But there is something more than a difference in material between the architectural manipulation of brick and that of stone. The former has a technical procedure of its own, as the brick builders appear to have been a separate class of workmen carrying out their schemes after their own manner. This may be noticed in the type of moulding employed, and the practice of projecting or setting back the surface planes, as well as other effects readily obtained in brick construction. Various processes were employed to produce the relief ornamentation, some of its being moulded, some chiselled out of the bricks after they were placed in position while in some instances the patterns were carved in the clay when it was in a plastic or "green" state previous to firing. In addition to these methods which were used mainly in producing the repeating designs or "arabesques", much of the figure work was boldly modelled in high relief either in terracotta or stucco The terracotta panels at Bhitagaon and in the Kachchi Kuti at Maheth, both evidently belonging to the same school of the fifth and sixth centuries, are extraordinarily good examples of this form of decoration, and display a vigour and action which are most praiseworthy. Confronted with the actual finger-prints of the potter, burnt in the clay as seen in some of these panels, in spite of the intervening centuries, one seems in closer touch with the craftsmen of the past than in the case of any other process or at any other period.