Indian Sculpture c5.s3.t1.34

c5.s3.t1.34

By the sixth century an attempt is made to free the body from the binding surface of the relief-ground. Hitherto, with breadth of shoulders and a posture parallel to the ground, the figure was its highest exponent (Figs. 54, 55, 59, although the latter is cast ‘in the round’). This is now made into the point of departure for a movement that passes vertically and arch-like from head to toe, with the highest curvature in the middle of the body.¹⁰² Hitherto, all the bhangas had been explored laterally, and, to some extent, together with the stances, in three dimensional aspects. Now altitude gains artistic significance, in the sense of an outward movement that lifts the figure across its own existence, and, though standing makes it appear to soar, while yet feet and head lie in the same vertical plane, closely bound to the ground and inseparably one with it (Fig. 62).