The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c9.195

v1.c9.195

**Decoration :** The "Lamp of Beauty" includes location, size, decoration, symmetry, and the disposition of light and shade. On each of these heads some remarks have already been made in different parts of the preceding pages (pp. [39], [28], [46] *et seq*). I desire, however, to add a few words regarding the last three. The excellence of decoration depends on the choice of forms, and their disposition in harmonious union. The two [ **74** ] conditions have to be equally respected, or the object is defeated. It would be a trite axiom to say, that unless the forms themselves be beautiful, no combination can make them so; but it is equally true that even the most beautiful objects lose their effect if not appropriately arranged. The Orissans of the seventh century paid particular attention to both these conditions. They were, as already stated (p. [ 67 ]), very choice in the selection of only what are naturally beautiful for ornaments, and they tried their utmost to arrange them to the best advantage. If their attempt at arrangement has not proved quite so successful as could be wished, it is due as much to art in India not having attained to that pitch of excellence with which European critics are too apt to compare it, as to national habits and local prejudices; for it must be borne in mind that, what is reckoned a most happy disposition according to one nation, does, often appear incongruous and offensive to another. An apt illustration of this remark occurs in the *Seven Lamps of Architecture*. Adverting to the disposition of garlands, Mr. Ruskin observes: "A garland is meant to be seen upon a head. There it is beautiful because we suppose it newly gathered and joyfully worn. But it is not meant to be hung on a wall".⁸³ This may be true of England, and perhaps also of modern Europe generally; but in India, where the universal practice is to wear garlands round the neck and not round the head, such a canon of taste cannot but be laughed at as absurd and ridiculous. It is usual here also to decorate houses, on festive occasions, with chaplets of leaves and flowers hung all over the walls and accordingly Indian artists have everywhere ornamented the necks of pillars, and the surfaces of walls with carved ornaments of the kind, and the effect instead of being incongruous and offensive, is positively beautiful. The festoons on the Corinthian frieze are also most agreeable and pleasing. Ideas of caricature and grotesque also differ in different nationalities, and when they are brought to bear on ornamentation, diversities are produced, which, though not universally appreciable, are still not on that ground faulty. In such cases all that can be demanded is harmony, and this, I venture to think, is not wanting in Orissan temples.