Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c44.3

c44.3

FROM a general view of the historical building remains of Siam there is a tendency to assume that its people were not specially distinguished for the character of their architecture, they aspired to erect temples and shrines often of a sumptuous nature, fully emblematic of their faith, but although in all these there are invariably evidences of a notable spiritual content, the genius which produces outstanding examples of the building art was never sufficiently pronounced. This is the more significant because on each side of them, towards the north-west in Burma, and, nearer still, on the east in Cambodia, as at Pagan in the former country, and at Angkor in the latter, the art of building was developed in a very magnificent manner. It is worthy of mention however that whereas these two adjacent and powerful schools of architecture came to a definite end towards the thirteenth century, the less forceful art of Siam, although nominally supposed to have completed its course in the seventeenth century, is still a living form of expression to the present day.