History of Orissa from the Earliest Times to the British Period v2.c47.60

v2.c47.60

Before proceeding with the narrative of the final stages in the evolution of plastic art in Orissa we must turn aside for a moment to consider certain statements of the late Mr. Mano Mohan Ganguly. The first statement worth noticing is :—“Indian artists have not thought it worth their while to copy from the life ; art was to them a means of removing the veil surrounding nature, or apparent reality. To copy from a living model, they knew to be a very easy task not worth pursuing ; in this, they could have easily excelled if they would, and this is borne out by reference to the magnificent war-horse led by a warrior, or the huge elephant lying within the compound of the temple at Konārka, or the huge bull within the precincts of the temple of Lingarāja at Bhuvaneśvara.”¹ The statement is misleading and incorrect. Regarding the unnatural idealism of mediaeval art in India we must take each class separately. The high standard of plastic art reached by Orissan artists prove definitely that artists of this province copied nature only where it was required, *e. g.*, the bas-reliefs in the Lingarāja or the Konarak temples; but they followed their own standard of idealism in the case of divine or semi-divine figures, where the real form was really unknown. Even Coomaraswamy did not observe this difference.²