The Ancient and Medieval Architecture of India: A Study of Indo-Aryan Civilisation c17.45

c17.45

Another superb fragment of painting (Pl. XLV) appears to be also a Vishnu motif. This is painted on the walls of the verandah in the monastic hall No. XVII, which has a north-west aspect; but here it is not the principal subject of the picture, as in the other hall, which is open to the rising sun. This is Vishnu as a Bodhisattva,² accompanied by Lakshmî, as Târâ, flying down from heaven to attend some event in the life of the Buddha. The animation of the heavenly beings, expressed by this Indian Tintoretto with an amazing display of technical power, is a great contrast to the serene composure, tinged with sadness, so masterfully rendered by the forgotten Perugino of Ajantâ in the first monastic hall. Only the dullest artistic comprehension will refuse to place these Ajantâ frescoes in the same category as the greatest masterpieces of Italian art. That they have been so long unappreciated by European artists is due in great measure to the miserably inadequate reproductions of them by which they have been hitherto known. The uninspired copies made by the Bombay School of Art, where the minds of Indian students are still drugged with the dull academic formularies of Europe, give no indication of the technical power and transcendent genius of the Ajantâ painters. But for the fact that since these copies were made many of the original frescoes have been shamefully destroyed or ruined by neglect, their destruction by fire would have been no loss to art.