Indian Sculpture c7.s3.3

c7.s3.3

Appearance itself is real to the Indian artist. It supplies the points of contact between object and artist. Thus there is no illusion in appearance that would disguise the reality of the object; it is, on the contrary, that part or aspect of the reality of the object that is met and comprehended by the eye. Indian naturalism, at various ages and with different degree, always relies on the outer aspect of things as means and proof of understanding a pre-existent situation, where, as in a capillary system, one and the same fluid rises in different and connected tubes. The creative acknowledgment of this internal and living connectedness of an inner experience of nature and the visible world, by putting it into form, is Indian naturalism. It comprises innervation as well as transubstantiation (pp. 5, 55).