Ajanta: The Colour and Monochrome Reproductions of the Ajanta Frescoes Based on Photography v4.c16.s36: Lotus-Creepers and Other Decorative Designs
Ajanta: The Colour and Monochrome Reproductions of the Ajanta Frescoes Based on Photography v4.c16.s36
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Lotus-Creepers and Other Decorative Designs
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Plate LXXIV*c
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*The designs are executed on the ceiling of the front corridor of Cave XXI.*
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THE ceiling of this cave must originally have had a large number of exquisite designs, but as the fresco has been destroyed in several places through various causes, their beauty and variety can be admired only from the few fragments which have survived. The ceiling of the front corridor, on the right side, has a fairly large fragment intact which, besides floral, geometric, and other artistic patterns, shows a charming lotus-creeper in which the freshness of the blue colour is particularly striking. On the creeper there are also white flowers and buds, the delicate petals of which have been painted with great care. In the choice of colours, too, the artist’s refined taste may be admired, the flowers being both white and blue, the stems green; while the creeper, with a view to throwing it into relief, has been painted on a dark background.²
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² The ceiling of the right aisle of Cave XIX has also some charming creeper-designs among which dwarfish human figures are interspersed. There are also figures of the Buddha in different attitudes (*mudrās*) and a scene in which a lady with a child has been shown standing before the Buddha. The child is putting something into the Buddha’s begging-bowl. Foucher has identified this subject with the story of ‘Offering of a handful of dust to the Blessed One by the child which afterwards became Aśoka’, *Jour. Hyd. Arch. Soc.*, No. 5, 1919-20, pp. 86-87. The porch of this cave has a panel in its ceiling representing five elephants. The grouping of the animals is ingenious, and two of them in the front are shown either fighting with each other or else caressing each other in a sportive mood, since their trunks are intertwined. The painting, however, does not show any vigour, and the disproportionately broad green key-pattern border has further weakened the artistic effect.