The art and architecture of India - Buddhist, Hindu, Jain (Art Ebook)

242 THE GOLDEN AGE AND END OF BUDDHIST ART
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flanked by the Bodhisattvas Avalokitesvara and
Maitreya, the principal members of the celestial
congregation who were vouchsafed a vision of
the Body of Bliss or Sambhogakdya. Above the
Buddha's head are angels supporting a stupa,
symbol of his final Nirvana. The style of the
individual figures, like the Gupta sculptures at
A.
Painting in the Gupta Period, like architecture
and sculpture, is merely the culmination,
not the renewal, of a very ancient tradition.
References to Indian painting occur in literature
of all periods as early as the Maurya, and it may
be assumed that techniques and traditions had
been formulated long before the Gupta era. The
principal source for an understanding of the
aesthetic of Indian painting is the Vishnudharmottaram,
which classifies the types of painting
appropriate to temples, palaces, and private
dwellings, and differentiates between 'true',
'lyrical', and 'secular' painting. Great stress is
laid on the necessity of following canonical
proportions and, of even greater import, the
expression of emotion through appropriate
movement. 11
Six Limbs or Essentials of Painting are
enumerated in the commentary of Yasodhara on
the Kama sutra, a work essentially of the Gupta
Period. These canons may be understood as a
reference to standards which every painter
would necessarily observe. They include the
proper representation of inner feeling or mood,
ideal proportion, as well as attention to proper
pose, and the preparation of colours and use of
the brush. These Indian canons are on the
whole practical injunctions, and have nothing
to do with the Six Canons of the fifth-century
Chinese painter Hsieh Ho.
That a certain trompe I'aeil through the
suggestion of relief was specifically intended in
Indian painting is hinted at by certain passages
in the Lankavatdra sutra: 'As a picture shows
181. Karli, chaitya-hall, Transfiguration of Buddha
Ajanta, is a rough, even crude provincial
derivation from the fifth-century school of
Sarnath, a resemblance to be discerned in the
smooth tubular bodies and limbs and extending
to such details as the wheel and the flanking
deer.
highness and lowness while (in reality) there is
nothing of the sort in it ... it is like the painter's
canvas on which there is no depression or
elevation as imagined by the ignorant.' 12
It is significant indeed that the Vishnudharmottaram
mentions the impossibility of attaining
a proper expression of emotion without a
knowledge of the art of dancing. This comment
in itself serves to explain that wonderfully
vibrant gesture and pose that characterizes the