Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c36.4

c36.4

In its broad aspect the course of this movement may be said to have been founded on the instinctive artistic sense of the Chalukyans, and to have culminated through the intellectual patronage of the Hoysalas Undoubtedly the cradle of the style may be located in that triad of historical towns in Dharwar, at Aihole, Badami, and Pattadakal, where, as already shown (Chapters XI and XIV), throughout the middle centuries of the first millennium some purposeful buildings, but of an unformed character were produced. In the course of time out of this very living beginning the large and important movement of the later Chalukyans was developed. This development was helped very considerably by the fact that the ground where this manifestation took place was well prepared. The artisans of Mysore, the country where the majority of the temples in this style are to be found, possessed an eminent aesthetic sensibility evidently the outcome of a long artistic tradition, which the strong and stable Chalukya-Hoysala rule stimulated and organized with remarkable results. Yet between the type of building that began in Dharwar and the more fully matured temples of the later Chalukyans there are certain fundamental differences One of the most noticeable of these was brought about by a radical change in the nature of the building material used by the Mysore craftsmen. Whereas the masons of the "three towns" of Dharwar employed large and unwieldly blocks of sandstone, thus producing an appearance of massive stability emphasized by bold plastic treatment, the Chalukya-Hoysala builders resorted to a stone of much finer grain—a greenish or bluish-black chloritic schist. The latter is a close-textured stone, very tractable under the chisel, and specially suited to the preparation of the minute carving which became a pronounced characteristic of the later style. With this change of material, and partly no doubt as the result of it, the masonry of the Mysore temples is more highly finished, the blocks are smaller and better dressed while the construction generally shows considerable technical enlightenment, improvements which are distinctly observable as the style progressed.