The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c33.15

v1.c33.15

Hardly less striking than the skill with which these monuments were chiselled and the brilliancy to which they were polished, is the disparity evinced in the style of their sculptured ornamentation. This disparity is well exemplified by comparing the primitive treatment of the statue from Pārkham in the Mathurā Museum with the highly developed modelling of the Sārnāth capital (Pl. XII, 26–28). The former represents a stage of art not yet emancipated from the binding law of 'frontality' or from the trammels imposed by the mental prepossessions of the artist. The head and torso are so posed that, were they bisected vertically, the two halves would be found to be all but symmetrical; while the flattened sides and back of the figure, connected only by a slight chamfering of the edges, are conclusive proof that the sculptor failed to grasp more than one aspect of his subject at a time, or to co-ordinate its parts harmoniously together as an organic whole. These features are not mere superficial details of technique, due to the caprice of the artist. They are the fundamental characteristics of the nascent sculpture of all countries, and the primitiveness of the art which they signify is borne out in this particular statue by other traits, namely, by the subordination of the side and back to the front aspect, by the inorganic attachment of the ears, by the uncouth proportions of the neck, by the schematic rotundity of the abdomen, and the absence of modelling in the feet.