The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c9.103

v1.c9.103

**Muscles :** A similar attempt to represent nature faithfully has resulted in another defect which European artists cannot but complain of: ³⁹ Indian statues are sadly wanting in muscles. The appearance of firmness, vigour, and strength, which so prominently characterises Grecian male figures, is due, to a great extent, to the bulging, knotty and rigid muscles they represent. The deltoid, the biceps, the pectoral, the gastronemius, and other muscles are all chiselled to perfection, and they strike the beholder with a sense of great strength and heroic manliness. Assyrian figures are, also, as stated above, well executed in this respect; but in Orissa prominent muscles are but too frquently wanting. Even the statue of Kārtikeya, the mighty God of War, in the Great Tower of Bhuvaneśvara, to the execution of whose ornaments and garlands and brocade-dress the artist has devoted uncommon attention and labour, appears without a single muscle projecting from under his skin. The calves, arms, breasts, shoulders, in short the whole body, is rounded, soft and plump, like that of a woman. Kārtikeya, however, is a youthful divinity, partaking more of the Apollo than the Hercules of the Grecian [ 58 ] artists, and his plumpness, therefore, is in keeping with his myth. The nude male figures at Bhuvaneśvara, Puri, and Koṇārak are, likewise, all rounded, soft and plump, and in them is seen the portraiture of the Uriyā to perfection; for he, like the Bengali, never attains anything like a well-developed calf, or a swelling deltoid. Rigid, knotty muscles are rarely to be seen in ordinary people, and even in acrobats and professed wrestlers they are generally ill-shown. A big stout man is always a fat man, never a muscular one; and in the vernaculars of the country, the two are indicated by the same term. It is not to be expected, therefore, that muscular forms should be represented in a prominent manner in sculpture. As justly observed by Dr. Lübke, "Art can only attain to her highest aim in such epochs and among such nations as universally recognise the beauty of the human form, in which it is promoted by natural capacity and favorable conditions of climate, in which it is developed by uniform exercise; and in which, lastly, the perfection of mind and body is equally cultivated".⁴⁰ In Bengal and Orissa, all these conditions are wanting; the climate is not only not favourable to exercise and development, but it induces a habit of indolent, sluggish, passive state of life, in which one would rather see a dance while seated at ease than dance himself; and that dance is more liked which consists of a series of gentle posture-making than that which is an exuberant display of energy as in Europe. The food of the people, also, is not only ill-calculated to develop the muscles, but it is exactly what is most favourable to cover the body with a supple coating of fat. In the North-Western Provinces, the people are taller, handsomer, and of better physique generally, but milk, *ghi*, and butter, being very largely used, and the climate for many months in the year being unfavourable to hard out-door exercise, their muscles are usually covered by a coating of fatty matter, and they fail to produce that