Chandragupta Maurya and His Times c15.191

c15.191

According to Dr. A. K. Coomaraswamy, even this supposed primitive or folk-art is not without its own artistic merits. It is no doubt primitive and crude as compared with the finished art of the time of Asoka, the art of the cultured classes, the official or Court-Art, as it may be called, which was meant to cater for the religious requirements of Hīnayāna Buddhism of those days. Coomaraswamy considers these colossal statues to be "informed by an astounding physical energy not obscured by their archaic stiffness, and expressive of an immense material force in terms of sheer volume;" representing "an art of mortal essence almost brutal in its affirmation, not yet spiritualised, and without any suggestion of introspection, subjectivity, or spiritual aspiration." "Stylistically, the type is massive and voluminous and altogether plastically conceived, not bounded by outlines."