Indian Sculpture c4.s1.6

c4.s1.6

The modelling, which is a heritage of palæolithic achievement, has crystallised, through the pressure of ages, into a phantom of its pristine force. The outline, with a predilection for the horizontal, is brittle, not flowing, and where it condenses into line itself, as in the curves of the horns or the tails, its sensibility is that of an insect’s feelers. In spite of obvious affinities with animals as treated in Mediterranean art, the brute force in these is altogether different from the sophisticated ‘innervation’ of the animals on the seals belonging to the Indus civilisation.