Indian Sculpture c6.s8.t2.5

c6.s8.t2.5

In Orissā, the problem of relating the figure and ground, in the early stages, leads to a flattening of the bodily volume, so that it appears to have been caught by the ground with invisible tentacles. For figure or ornamental device are but signs of the extreme livingness of the temple-body, where it is brought into contact with surrounding space. In the tenth century the surface itself of the temple-wall boldly steps out into the third dimension, while closely hugging to itself the ornamentation, that by now has become furrowed and roughened by a greater depth and a play of light and darkness full of contrasts. This wall-surface now, with bold profiles, itself three-dimensional, seems to crumble into the organised intricacy of its light-dark ornamentation, and the two together put forth figure sculpture furthermost exposed into space. The ultimate possibility of this is reached in the Sun temple at Koṇāraka (thirteenth century, Fig. 103). There architecture, on the grandest scale, has its surface covered and differentiated by ornamentation, and jointly they step forth with figure sculpture, not only in relief but fully carved in the round, severed almost (in the upper storeys) from the architectural body, and actually the colossal horses, elephants, etc., are away from it right in the plane, yet dynamically, and in a wider sense, one with it; for the atmosphere itself, that is comprised within the lines that can be drawn pyramidally from the top of the building to these outlying figures, has been integrated into the volume and become part of the body of this architecture; this, ultimately, is but a supreme fulfilment of the classically Indian conception of volume (Ellora, etc., p. 89). Architecture thus in Orissā is but sculpture on a gigantic scale, and the modelled figure, as well as space itself, partake in its discipline.