Indian Sculpture and Painting, Illustrated by Typical Masterpieces, with an Explanation of their Motives and Ideals c7.264

c7.264

It is wonderful how the movement of this bronze, in all its seeming *naïveté*, embodies the mystic idea of divine ecstasy. There is nothing of the mere animal gaiety of the Dancing Faun, nor any suggestion of the drunken frenzy of the Bacchanal. In its technical treatment the figure presents the same broad anatomical generalisation and the peculiar type of torso as we have seen in Buddhist sculpture. No one who observes the mastery of the structure of the human figure and the immense technical skill which the Hindu sculptor here shows, can believe that it was from want of ability or knowledge that he has left out all indication of the smaller details of the muscular system. The Indian artist, as a rule, delights in elaborating detail; but here, as in all his ideals of Deity incarnate, he has deliberately suppressed it.