Indian Sculpture c7.s1.5

c7.s1.5

This plastic and essential quality of Indian sculpture does not brook our use of the term. In Western art the hewing into form of an originally shapeless block of stone, etc., underlies the notion of sculpture. The term ill-fits the plastic art of India, but we retain it nevertheless, though with the reservation, explained in these pages, devoted to the three-dimensional works of Indian art. The notion of sculpture, i.e. of giving form by detached movements to a hard and unyielding material, is valid for European art. In India, on the contrary, marble or wood appear as if kneaded in a continuity, as if the hand were never separated from the mass and were never losing touch with the material. While the vision, i.e. the object contemplated, is before the mind of the craftsman, his hand records his experience of that object and the rules laid down for its visualisation. There is something fluid in his rendering; a peculiar perpetual balance of up and down that does not admit any halt, any accent, any emphasis. A ceaseless and seemingly effortless gliding rounds off all corners.