Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c43.48

c43.48

Where, however, the Khmer sculptors excelled was in the high standard and lavish display of their plastic art as represented in the long series of bas-reliefs on the walls of their buildings particularly those in the corridors of Angkor Vat, in which temple alone they form a continuous frieze of over two thousand feet, resolved into eight compartments, six feet in height, the figures of all kinds thus portrayed aggragating upwards of eighteen thousand in number. Episodes of war and peace, pomp and pageantry, ceremony and cavalcade, the forest and the field, every picturesque event of a picturesque age, allegory and legend sacred and profane, all are imaged in this absorbing national art gallery More-over these reliefs hold a mirror to the Cambodian people themselves, from which it is possible to sense their reactions to art and life, and to realize something of their emotional nature generally. And all are drawn, composed, and in a form of relief that has rarely been equalled. Delicately but firmly modelled, a comparison of this method of plastic art with that practised in other countries may be useful. Nothing could be more emphatic than their contrast with the reliefs in the adjacent country of Java, especially on the famous stupa of Borobudur, the sculptured galleries of which are almost as extensive and continuous as those at Angkor. But whereas the former are moulded in high, bold, rounded forms almost aggressively robust, the Cambodian school has obtained its results by means of a more subtle treatment of gradations and planes, less impressive at first sight, but with a more sensitive feeling for artistic quality, recalling in a manner that of tapestry. Turning to the schools in India, the Khmer reliefs bear the nearest resemblance in technique to those on the stupa of Amaravati in Madras, executed several centuries previously, but here also there is a difference in modelling and in the actual height of the projection, besides other variations which seem to rule out any definite relationship On the other hand although the Angkor art displays an originality in every aspect of its treatment, it is worthy of note that the same textural attributes may be discerned in the bas-reliefs of some of the contemporary schools in China.