The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c9.204

v1.c9.204

changes the light into a variety of shades. On rounded forms a line-of-beauty-like sigmoid scroll is a common device. It is sometimes carved into foliage, but ordinarily left bare. Its effect is very pleasing. It cuts the figure into two, and, by casting a strong dark line of shadow, brings out its contour to perfection. On flat bands and mouldings oblong tablets are frequently used, [ 76 ] which break their continuity, and effect an agreeable diversion. But the most generally adopted device is the *Rāmarekhā* already noticed. Its use as a crest, though extensive, is secondary compared to the part it plays in regulating the fall of light on mouldings, bands and fascias ( p. [ 47 ] ). Mr. H. H. Locke of the Government School of Art, Calcutta, speaks in terms of great praise of this class of stops ; and as he has made a more thorough and scientific study of Orissan architecture than any other European artist or antiquarian, and can, from his perfect familiarity with, and professional knowledge of, European art, speak on the subject with much authority, I avail myself of his permission to quote here a passage from a private letter of his to my address. He says : "These points are so many *stops* in the line of light and shade ; sometimes the pause is that of a light point amid shadow, sometimes it is a dark point upon a belt of light ; in both these phases the feature is extremely characteristic of the architecture you are writing about, and shews clearly how well the Orissan builders understood the value of a sharp line of cast shadow across a varied surface. Place a rod in front of a long suit of mouldings and see how the cast-shadow of the stick, in winding and turning in and out of round and hollow, projection and depression, 'brings out' the profile or contour of the different surfaces, and the more direct the sun's rays fall on them, destroying the local surface-shades, the stronger will be the effect of the cast-shadow. The Hindus, I am safe in saying, felt this thoroughly, and never allowed a long suit of mouldings to run the risk of appearing tame and uniform from loss of light and shade ; these ' stops ', as I have called them, are always brought in every here and there giving sharp cast-shaows which develop the forms of the moulded surfaces in a most effective and agreeable way. There seems in fact to have been a perfect thirst for light and shade—crisp, broken light and shade—and these stops are so many ' traps ', not ' to catch sun-beams ', but to catch form-explaining shadows. Even in the bases of piers 'and pilasters, where the horizontal run of the mouldings barely exceeds a couple of feet, there is still the stop which gives you a vertical ' contouring ' midway, and the effect of the mouldings thus tied together by narrow strips left in the original surface-plane is, to my mind, charming in the extreme ".