Ajanta: The Colour and Monochrome Reproductions of the Ajanta Frescoes Based on Photography v1.c4.15

v1.c4.15

representation, we lay all the emphasis on design. Design is the root of the matter, assuredly: yet there is a danger in the too conscious pursuit of design. When the whole attention is concentrated on this, there is apt to be loss of depth. The artists of Ajanta had before them always the primary aim of rendering the significance of the stories they were to paint upon the walls. It was rather their intuitive unconscious powers which guided the disposition of the figures and synthesized their grouping. Thus the design is not altogether on the surface, but an underlying vitality within. I would not be thought to make any hard distinction between conscious and subconscious effort. Every artist knows how subtly and inextricably these two co-operate. The painters of Ajanta were conscious artists, obviously; they were not working at random or covering a surface bit by bit without plan or preconception; but they gave easy play, as they went, to the natural animation of forms; they felt no compelling need to enforce cohesion by gestures and attitudes dictated by pictorial effect rather than inspired by the subtle relationships of living beings in company. They welcomed the grace of casual movement. And we note how in these paintings each of the figures is intent on what it is doing or possessed by what it is feeling. There is no turning toward the spectator for sympathy or attention.