Ajanta: The Colour and Monochrome Reproductions of the Ajanta Frescoes Based on Photography v1.c4.31

v1.c4.31

It is worth noting that a system of modelling in two tones, derived almost certainly from Indian example, is found in certain (by no means all) of the ninth-century Buddhist paintings recovered by Sir Aurel Stein from Tun-huang (see, for instance, Pl. X of *The Thousand Buddhas*). But here, as also in some early Buddhist pictures in Japan, this system is on the way to becoming a decorative convention, no longer really understood. It was an element that Chinese and Japanese painting could not assimilate and ended by rejecting.