Indian Sculpture c8.14

c8.14

2. Yakṣa statue from Patna. Late third century B.C. Indian Museum, Calcutta. Part of side view. The heaviness of this statue is but little innervated. The scarf on the back accentuates its rigidity. While it emphasises by contrast the surging roundness of arm, breast and abdomen, it detracts from, and at the back it actually stops, the tendency to model in the round. The colossal and round forms of arm, breast, etc., moreover, are smooth and lifeless in their polished inertia. The conflict of rounded volume and flat surface, the complex relation of garment and ornaments to the body, are now of greater interest to the craftsman than the treatment of the body itself.