Ajanta: The Colour and Monochrome Reproductions of the Ajanta Frescoes Based on Photography v1.c4.32

v1.c4.32

There are, of course, writers who believe that the art of Ajanta is somehow derived from Hellenistic art; and this might be an explanation of the tendencies we have been noting. It is not impossible that Hellenistic paintings were known to the Indian artists, but we do not know what they were like. If the wall-paintings of the third century, apparently by an artist from Asia Minor, found at Miran in Central Asia by Sir Aurel Stein, were typical of provincial schools in the Eastern provinces of the late Roman empire, there was little there to inspire or stimulate. The Miran frescoes depict Buddhist scenes. The contours are heavy, the faces have full, prominent eyes like the portraits found in tombs in Egypt. I find no affinity here with the animated drawing or the physical types of Ajanta. But the presence of foreign types, due to the pilgrimage to India of Buddhists from Central Asia, outside the north-western border, in two paintings in this *vihāra* (Plates XXXVIII and XXXIX) indicates a certain amount of intercourse with foreign lands; hence there may have been acquaintance with finer examples of Hellenistic art, capable at least of stimulating.