Elements of Hindu Iconography v1.c7.89

v1.c7.89

If one studies the sculpture of India from the historic point of view, he cannot fail to notice that there have been different stages in the evolution of the art here as elsewhere. To be able to assign a given piece of sculpture to the particular stage of its evolution, it is necessary to know with some amount of accuracy the various peculiarities of the earlier and later sculptures. All the earlier specimens of sculpture are in general free from the cramping influence of artificial rules, and are notably realistic; a desire on the part of the artist to copy nature as faithfully as possible, is plainly visible in his work. In his human studies, the bust, though fully formed, is not stiff and severe in its contours as in the later specimens. As in later workmanship, the chest does not end abruptly, and the abdomen begins making sharp angles with the former. There is a gentle merging in of the one into the other without any marked line of demarcation between them; the outline of the whole of the body is like two gently curved brackets placed at a little distance from each other with their concave opening side turned outwards and resembles more or less the outline of the face of a cow. Whereas, in later sculptures, we see the outline of the body to be the outline of the thistle flower; the lower circular portion represents the abdomen beginning abruptly and with a severe and unpleasant angle at both sides from where the thorax ends. In the earlier faces, the nose is rather short and the lips are somewhat thicker than in the later ones. The eyes are less artificial in that they are not disproportionately long. The face itself is noticeably round in outline in the earlier art, while it is oval in the later specimens of sculpture; and the chin is invariably shown somewhat prominently, although it is really smaller in proportion than what is demanded by accurate art. In the later sculpture, the nose is simply a long triangular pyramid attached by one of its sides to the face with the apex turned upwards. It is so awkwardly attached to the face that it is alone enough to mark off the sculpture to be quite modern. The sharp upper edge running throughout the length of the nose, the acutely pointed tip at one of the junctions of three edges in the clear-cut tetrahedron making up the nose, the broad wings and the single point at which the nose ends at the top, are all very peculiar to the works of the later period. The limbs are also sculptured with severe and abrupt outlines; for example, the muscles of the upper part of the