A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c19.s4: Section V. Lattices

A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c19.s4

Language: English

Section V. Lattices

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Pierced stone screens or lattices used as windows were not unknown to Hindu architects, and were especially favoured by the builders of the highly decorated temples in the Mysore, Deccan, or Chalukyan style. For example, at Belūr there are twenty-eight such windows, all different. Some of these are pierced with merely conventional patterns, generally star-shaped, with bands of foliage between; others are interspersed with figures and mythological subjects.¹

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¹ Fergusson, *Hist. of Ind. and E. Archit.*, ed. 1910, vol. i, p. 440, with a bad illustration.

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But the Musalman architects, who were more restricted than the Hindus in their liberty of decoration, developed the art of designing and executing stone lattices to a degree of perfection unknown to other schools. Endless variations of geometrical patterns, generally pleasing, although wearisome when examined in large numbers, are the most characteristic forms of Muhammadan lattice-work, which is seen at its best in the Gūjarāt (Ahmadābād) and Mughal buildings. The designs both in Gūjarāt and the earlier Mughal work have been often influenced by Hindu tradition. The Muslim artists used the lattice, not only for windows, but also for the panels of doors and for screens or railings round tombs with excellent effect.

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The most beautiful traceries at Ahmadābād are to be seen in ten nearly semicircular windows of Sīdī Sayyad's mosque built about A. D. 1500, which may be fairly described as the most artistic stone lattice-work to be found anywhere in the world. I give two examples—one with geometrical patterns, and the other with the tree motive of Hindu origin, which should be compared with the modern carving in the Mysore Palace (*ante*, p. 236).

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'It would be difficult,' Fergusson observes, 'to excel the skill with which the vegetable forms are conventionalized just to the extent required for the purpose. The equal spacing also of the subject by the three ordinary trees and four palms takes it out of the category of direct imitation of nature, and renders it sufficiently structural for its situation; but perhaps the greatest skill is shown in the even manner in which the pattern is spread over the whole surface. There are some exquisite specimens of tracery in precious marbles at Agra and Delhi, but none quite equal to this.'²

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² *Hist. Ind. and E. Archit.*, ed. 1910, vol. ii, p. 236. The companion window (Pl. IV of Burgess) represents more distinctly 'the phenomenon, not unfamiliar to the Indian traveller, of a banyan-tree growing out of and around a palm, until in its snake-like entanglements of root and branch the banyan strangles its foster parent' (*Indian Art at Delhi*, p. 122, Pl. XXVII).

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The material of the Ahmadābād windows is Gūjarāt sandstone. (Plate CIII.)

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[Figure: FIG. A. Panel in dado of ‘false mosque’ (*jawāb*) at the Tāj, Agra. (*Ann. Rep. A. S., India*, 1903–4, Pl. II *a*.)]

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[Figure: FIGS B, C. Panels from Sārangpur Mosque, Ahmadābād, *cir.* A. D. 1500. (*A. S. Rep., Western India*, vol. viii, Pl. XXXIII, Figs. 3, 4.)]

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PLATE CII. Relief carvings.

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Fig. A. Geometrical. (Pl. XLIX, vol. vii, *Arch. S. Western India.*)

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Fig. B. Tree motive. (Pl. LI, ibid.)

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[Figure: Plate CIV. Marble verandah screen, tomb of Salīm Chishtī, Fathpur-Sīkrī, A.D. 1571. (E. W. Smith, *Fathpur-Sīkrī*, Part III, Pl. XXXV.)]

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[Figure: Plate CV. Marble screen round the cenotaph of the Tāj. (From a photograph.)]

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The examples of well-designed and well-executed open-work tracery, chiefly in marble, at Agra and Delhi are so numerous that it is difficult to select typical specimens. But it is impossible to do better than to illustrate the style of Akbar's time from the tomb of Salīm Chishtī at Fathpur-Sīkrī, built A.D. 1571. Plate CIV reproduces some of the marble screen-work enclosing the verandah, exhibiting an elegant and effective combination of a geometrical pattern with a conventionalized plant design.