The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c9.79

v1.c9.79

Besides mythology and poetical allegory there are other causes which lead to monstrous, unnatural, or incongruous representations in paintings and sculpture: these are caprice, artistic conceit, and extravagance, very similar to what are so common among poets. They lead to the production of rams issuing from the volutes of Corinthian or composite pillars; of human figures whose nether halves are formed of undulating dock weeds,—compositions which first made their appearance on the frieze of Torre de Nerone, and long after got into fashion among the artists of the Renaissance; —of lions and bulls whose hind quarters are formed of the same weed; and of a variety of other unnatural forms, some very pleasing, others grotesque and repulsive. But such vagaries, whether resulting from mythological, allegorical, poetical, or artistic causes, are mere accidents, and not the essentials of the plastic art, and their presence therefore, does not afford sufficient *a priori* argument against the possibility of the Hindus attaining any great proficiency in sculpture. That they did not attain it is a fact not to be denied; but the cause is to be looked for elsewhere than in their religion. What the cause was which led to this negative result I shall not venture to guess, seeing that European scholars have not yet been able satisfactorily to account for the positive superiority of the Greeks.²⁸