A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c14.s2.106

c14.s2.106

In Cave 2 are three more distinct styles: on both the side walls of a secondary shrine we find four or five elaborately posed, nearly nude life-size figures. These are sinuous in outline, quite Cimabuesque in proportion, attitude and general feeling; the arrangement suggests bas-relief. The late date of this cave indicates the period of the painting. In a similar shrine on the opposite side are corresponding decorations, and the figures on the main west wall might, but for the type, be an assemblage of Chinese sages; they are drawn with a magnificent bravura. There is not much colour left, but the somewhat caligraphic drawing in forcible blacks and reddish browns is so freely executed that one scarcely regrets the destruction which has laid bare such vital work. On a separate part of this west wall there is a subject of men and white geese in a water-lily pool, which, though closely linked to the earlier definitely Indian types of painting, suggests the freedom and at the same time the perfect balance of the very best Chinese period. The colour scheme is very beautiful—brilliant white, deep purple-brown, a vivid but rich malachite-green, with touches of a clear red.