Indian Sculpture c7.s2: Accentless Distribution and Dynamic Coherence
Indian Sculpture c7.s2
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Accentless Distribution and Dynamic Coherence
c7.s2.1
Not to emphasise any single part of the sculpture is a rule with the Indian artist. This is not counteracted by such conventions, as, for instance, that of giving disproportionate size (from a Western point of view) to figures or parts of figures of outstanding importance, i.e. to divinities mostly. Although they are made to occupy a far larger share of the available volume than other figures, they do not receive any special accent. The other figures are not grouped so as to culminate in the figure of the divinity, and, though much smaller, they occupy their allotted and collateral place with equal self-sufficiency. The entire composition consists of self-sufficient units, which, paradoxically enough, gain that quality only by their intrinsic connectedness. But each unit is self-sufficient in its meaning, and in its plastic, i.e. three-dimensional, extensiveness. The meaning and composition of the whole, however, are by no means their sum total. The dynamic way in which these are connected produces a singular compactness. Accentless distribution is the visible outcome of dynamic coherence.
c7.s2.2
The fluidity which permeates not only every unit, but every part of the unit, thereby joins the one to the next in unending succession. At the same time the difference in appearance, be it in the figures of men, animals or flowers, makes every unit distinguishable and induces modifications of the fluid medium. This causes a tension from unit to unit, which is redeemed only by the fulfilment of each entire composition. No linear scheme is responsible for this, but a balance of plastic weights, which, while being weighted on one side is relieved on the other, as often and in as many ways as the number and constellation of the units will allow. Fluidity, by passing through limits, that is, those of appearance, is sometimes contracted and at other times allowed to expand. These haltings or accelerations compensate each other, and keep the balance of the parts of every single work of art in an unwavering state of potential movement. Their dynamic tension is not restricted to any part; it belongs to the whole and makes it consistent. With this fluid and balanced underground vitality calmness is apparent; there is no accent in the deeply inter-related extensiveness.
c7.s2.3
As dynamic coherence accounts for accentless distribution, Indian sculpture is not static, but it is essentially dynamic. The static condition, however, is true of a considerably large number of images, yet stiffness in their case is nothing but lifelessness, and this is due to many of the craftsmen not being artists. These merely proceed according to prescribed formulæ. Their mechanical rendering serves well enough the purpose of the image and makes it a fit object for worship. But the prescriptions laid down for this purpose were never intended for the achievement of artistic quality, but they were meant to make the image fit for worship. Still, apart from the demands of cult, the born artists amongst the craftsmen could not help, while obeying the rules, to re-invest their work with a significance, in relation to which these rules were but helps and stepping-stones towards visualisation.
c7.s2.4
While it is only the artistically lifeless image that is static, even the most agitated action suggested by Indian sculpture is never translated into a composition that would have to resound with the movement of the former. (Exception p. 88.) But wherever frantically agitated figures occur, they do so as permanent states of a mental quality that is possible alongside with the rendering of other such qualities embodied in the remaining figures of one and the same composition. The dynamic nature of the plastic treatment is not influenced by the showing of activity, or the lack of it, in the case of the single figures and their movements.
c7.s2.5
The way in which the raw material is transmuted into Indian plastic, and the qualities that are the outcome, have their correspondence in the attitude towards the subject matter and its treatment. Whatever figures or scene the artist represents are real to him, imaginary neither less nor more than the seen. He does not assert himself in his creation. But however impersonal and above individual thought, emotion, or technique be the attitude of the artist, he cannot but impart his vitality to his creation, i.e. his most unindividualised and natural aspect. On the kind and degree of this, while assuming a standard in common of technical efficiency, depend the quality of production. Vitality in this connection has to be understood as mainly vegetative. This is the chief root, and its ramifications embrace the meditative amongst others, while the animalic is a lesser root, and innervation or emotion correspondingly well up into lower branches.
c7.s2.6
It is this vitality that cannot be arrested permanently in any shape. For this reason portraiture, in the current sense, does not exist in Indian sculpture. Portraiture belongs to civilisations that fear death. Individual likeness is not wanted where it suffices for the type to continue.
c7.s2.7
This specifically Indian mode of creative vitality may take an introvert or an extrovert course. In the former and more frequent case, it imbues every figure, as well as the entire scene, with an intensity that falls back upon itself. Tension results between the single figures, and not merely contact; however widely apart they may be placed, there is no distance, nothing void nor spatial, between them. Thus they are held in the balance, and every part of their visibility acts as index that does not stir.
c7.s2.8
Where, however, the extrovert tendency is unavoidable, as, for instance, in the scene of the three steps of Viṣṇu, etc., it endows the physical movement of the figure with indomitable power, so that what otherwise might be direction is here flash and aim in one.