History of Orissa from the Earliest Times to the British Period v2.c47.2

v2.c47.2

The history of Orissan art is as varied and interesting as her political history. Like Mālava and Gujarat, Orissa stood for centuries on the border line between the north and the south, freely imbibing the best characteristics of both, belonging wholly to neither. Her population also was mixed, the Utkalan resembling the people of the contiguous countries of the north and the Kalingan approximating to the Andhra or the Telegu. In sculpture and in all forms of Art, Orissa shows a definite mixture of the north and the south, in which figure work predominated in the decorative *motifs* of her shrines mixed with a vast amount of southern decorative designs. The north always accentuates the human figure in decorative *motifs*, while the south attempts to specialise in designs which are, in majority of cases, without figure-work. The general characteristic of Orissan art is a mixture; but this mixture compares unfavourably with the mediaeval art of Mālava, in which the figure work of the north is much stronger than the decorative designs of the south.