The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c9.59

v1.c9.59

**Human figures :** Ascending from vegetable and animal to human life, we come to where the sculptor's art attains its highest perfection. It is then that it attempts “the representation of the divine, and the heroic”, and the infusion into it of “the spark of divine life, the conscious soul”, and “a reflex of immortal beauty, idealizing lifeless handicraft”. Then it is that it becomes “an animated spirit-breathing art”, which, according to Socrates in his dialogue with the sculptor Clito,—“must represent the emotions of the soul by form”. These predicates are, however, true only when applied to Grecian art in its perfection, and also to Roman art as a reflexion of Grecian genius. No other ancient art made any near approach to that perfection. The Hindus were as far behind it as the Egyptians, Assyrians and Persians. The gulf between them and the Grecian artists of the golden age is wide and deep. The unique and inimitable perfection of the Phidian and the Praxitelian schools has hitherto been the great object of envy to artists of every age and clime, and it would be as idle to compare the works of the Uriyā sculptors with the grand and [ 51 ] the beautiful of the sacred land of art, as to compare the paintings of India with the *chef d'oeuvre* of Raphael. The schools which preceded them were, however, neither so perfect, nor so far above the ordinary run of art in other ancient seats of civilization as to remove them from the sphere of comparison. The Etruscan, the Egyptian, and the Assyrian schools, have peculiarities which may be compared to advantage with those of Orissan sculpture to settle their relative merits. Doubtless they flourished long before the Orissan school, and a comparison between them cannot be fair to the ancient nations concerned ; but as the object here is not to award the palm of superiority to any one nation, but to ascertain the position which should be assigned to the Uriyā artists in the history of art, it will, I think, not be held objectionable.