The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c9.56

v1.c9.56

**Animal life:** In the representation of vegetable life in sculpture the artist has only form and motion to study, but no life, such life and freshness as are visible in vegetation after a summer shower, or the depression noticeable under a parching hot sun, belonging to the province of the painter, and not being attainable by the sculptor's art. The task of the artist, therefore, is easier when he carves foliage, flowers, and trees than when he undertakes to reproduce the brute creation in stone. Then he has, besides form and motion, some ethereal, intangible, but at the same time most important elements, viz., sensuous passions, to portray, and his undertaking becomes proportionately more arduous. But the Uriyās did not prove unequal to the task. They made considerable progress in it, and displayed much tact and ingenuity. Reference has already been made to their life-like pictures of monkeys, and the success with which sensuous passions have been shown in them, (*ante* p. [47] ). The elephant has also been carved and chiselled with great skill. The horse at the southern gate of the Koṇārak porch is remarkably well-proportioned, and representations of rats, parrots, geese, goslings, deer, and other animals, shown in the illustrations annexed to this work will, I imagine, be generally acknowledged to be pretty close imitations of nature. A colossal bull in the enclosure of the Great Tower is also worthy of note as a specimen of well-finished animal-carving.