Indian Sculpture c5.s3.t1.17

c5.s3.t1.17

An art, concentrated on the innermost sources of life and on its own contemplation within them, has but little scope for superfluities such as apparel and jewellery. The burdensome ornaments of the early classical period (Figs. 26, 32, 36), the experiments in wreaths and folds of the age of early maturity (Figs. 28, 41, 44), had already been employed in the school of Veṅgī to a lesser extent (Fig. 50). There, too, a delicate and at the same time abbreviated formulation had set in. Now, the little that is tolerated, of garment, jewellery or garlands (Figs. 56, 58, 60), stands in sensitive relation to the body, of which it is a sheath and foil, accurate in its delineation (robe of the Buddha, Figs. 54, 55, 59, 62), or delicate with flowers (garland of Varāha avatāra, Udayagiri, Fig. 63). Between these two, i.e. the systematically accurate and the blossoming surface (Figs. 56–58, 62, 66), Gupta and contemporary sculpture are unfolded.