The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c9.157

v1.c9.157

Looking to these facts I am induced to believe that the offensive figures are due to a desire to typify religious idea, and not to an inherent vicious taste in the artists⁶⁶ or their employers. It was not "to incite, excite, or gratify the lower feelings of the public", "to lower art to unworthy purposes by objectionable representations", but to symbolize a religious idea, [ 67 ] that the offensive sculptures were carved; and this was done without any perception of their offensive character. This is the more apparent in the circumstance of all the ornaments being chaste, and their disposition thoroughly artistic. Tendrils and young leaves, flowers and fruits, pretty birds and pet animals, young children and youthful maidens,—the most graceful objects in nature,—have everywhere been selected for ornamentation, and they have been so combined as to produce the most striking effects. They have been, perhaps, more profusely employed than the classic taste of the Grecians would have permitted; but the accumulations being harmonious are not displeasing, and the main object being magnificence, they could not well be avoided. It may be added also that no object has anywhere been represented which is not calculated to inspire a sense of beauty in the beholder. The Romans made a grave mistake in this respect by placing skulls of men and oxen with cross bones between their triglyphs as objects of beauty. Long association may have altogether deadened the repulsiveness of those objects to the European eye, but as Ruskin pointedly observes, "We may keep a skull besides us as long as we please; we may overcome its repulsiveness; we may render ourselves capable of perceiving many qualities of beauty about its lines; we may contemplate it for years together if we will, it and nothing else; but we shall not get ourselves to think as well of it as of a child's fair face."⁶⁷ Nothing of the kind occurs in Orissan temples. Grotesque forms and unnatural combinations are not uncommon, but they are by no means more obtrusive than in Greek or Roman art, and if the religious element and its monstrous conceptions could be eliminated, there would be little that would be disagreeable or unpleasant. It is worthy of remark also that at Bhuvaneśvara this religious element is not particularly prominent; and the bulk of the ornaments have been copied from nature, and arranged with considerable study and refinement of taste.