Indian Sculpture c4.s1.1

c4.s1.1

ABORIGINAL in trend and quality, the earliest works of Indian plastic art yet known, from the fourth and third millenium B.C., do not mark the beginning of sculpture in India. On the contrary, the few but variegated relics found at Harappa, Mohenjo-Daro, Jhukar, Amri and elsewhere in the Pañjāb, Sind, Baluchistān and Seistān,² suggest a high sophistication based on age-old artistic experience. The art of the Indus valley had already reached its creative climax when it indulged in deliberately subtle or snugly powerful form. The main medium in India of translation from actual seeing into artistic form is modelling. In this respect the heritage of the palæolithic art is carried on into the chalcolithic stage, to which the Indus civilisation belongs.