The Hindu Temple v2.c12.96

v2.c12.96

Wreathed around the axis of this sculpture, the lower part of the body in three quarter back view is turned at the hips so that the bust is seen in almost three quarter profile, the arm is thrown back for this purpose; the lowered head, almost completely in profile view is laid across the slightly tilted vertical of the figure; the face opens up towards the right from the chalice shaped chignon. This crescendo in volume of the head in one direction, while the face is lowered and seems to withdraw into itself in the opposite direction, is repeated in the next lower section of the ‘statue’ where the arm is pushed back in an acute angle where the breasts are seen and the hand clings to their round contour. The shoulder joint is here in the centre of the co-ordinates of the composition (cf. the rôle of the elbow, in Pl. XI), one passes through the elbow and the shoulder joint, the other from the contact of hand and breast, to the top of the chignon; through the centre of these co-ordinates moreover passes the main vertical of the image. It is tilted forward, follows the inner outline of the right leg and passes through the outer corner of the eye. There also passes the horizontal axis of the head, at a right angle to the main vertical; it has its parallel in a line drawn from the elbow to the hip girdle, at a point below which festoons are attached to it. Parallels to the main vertical connect the right elbow and the back of the chignon, and the raised left elbow with the outline of the right hip where the girdle rests. Thus the volumes around the sculptural axis are co-ordinated in the surface of the image, especially the cones or jutting angles of the arms. These moreover are diagonally connected in space and are balanced by the co-ordinate along which the body turns round in the hip, from buttock to waist. These co-ordinates are laid diagonally across the figure and have their centre at the tip of the armlet. The movement of the figure and the placing of its volumes around its sculptural axis, are balanced according to a geometrical plan in the surface; the linear rhythm of the composition and the three dimensional spiralic disposition of its volumes around their axis are integrated in this ‘statue of the temple wall’.