A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c16.s9.1

c16.s9.1

The considerable part played by terra-cotta in the evolution of Indian sculpture has not been generally recognized, although Cunningham showed long ago that the early brick temples which preceded stone edifices in many parts of Northern India were decorated with ‘terra-cotta ornaments and alto-rilievos’.¹ The art of handling terra-cotta as a material for works of art has been extinct for centuries, except that it lingered late in a debased form in Bengal; but in the early centuries of the Christian era terra-cotta was considered good enough for friezes, floral ornaments, animal figures, and even statuettes two or three feet in height. Many of the terra-cotta figures at the Bhītargāon brick temple, dating perhaps from the fifth century (*ante*, p. 28), are, as Cunningham observed, ‘boldly designed and well drawn,’ though marred by a tendency to excessive violence in the expression of movement and consequent liability to lapse into grotesqueness. The fragile nature of the material naturally causes a dearth of good specimens, and little attention has been paid to those few which survive. A single plate (LXXXIV) must suffice for the illustration of this ancient and forgotten form of art. The Graeco-Persian head from Sārnāth dating from the Maurya period (Plate LXXXIV, Fig. A) has been published by Mr. Marshall in *J. R. A. S.*, 1908, Plate IV, 6.