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

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PART FIVE <
THE HINDU RENAISSANCE
CHAPTER 17
THE PERIOD OF THE HINDU DYNASTIES
I. INTRODUCTION
of the Hindu Dynasties' to
describe this final
The term 'Medieval', which is universally employed
in all books on Indian art to designate
the historical periods of art after the fall of the
Gupta Empire, is an extremely unfortunate one
first, because it invites comparison with the
Medieval Period in the West, and secondly,
because the word, in its European usages a synonym
for the Middle Ages, implies an interregnum
- between two moments of supreme
cultural achievement, the Classical and the
Renaissance. The art described by 'Medieval'
in India has nothing to do with the European
Middle Ages except perhaps in a parallel iconographic
sense, and it can in no way be regarded
as an interlude or interruption. It is rather the
final and inevitable development out of the
maturity of Gupta art. Actually, for those who
like to apply the names of European periods to
the East, the word 'Baroque' both as a description
and a parallel is much more appropriate for
the character of this final phase of Indian culture
from the point of view of its tremendous
power and dynamic richness of expression.
What above all determines the character of Indian
art for the last fifteen hundred years is the
revived power of the Hindu religion, which, as
has been noted above, entirely ousted Buddhism
as a universal Indian faith. For our purpose,
therefore, it is proposed to use the title 'Period
phase of art in India.
The amount of material for study is so enormous
that some arbitary division in the analysis
is imperative. The greater portion of the chapter
will deal with the most important works of
Hindu architecture, sculpture, and painting. In
so far as is possible, the treatment will be chronological,
with sub-divisions by styles, dynasties,
and geographical location. Even more than in
the Gupta Period no strict separation of architecture
and sculpture is possible, so that only
the final developments in painting, culminating
in the Rajput style, will receive a separate treatment.
Only a relatively small portion of the material
from the late periods of Indian art can be
treated in our chapter, and only the most significant
examples in every medium can be discussed.
The selection of those to be analysed
has been based on their intrinsic importance for
Indian art and for later developments in Further
India. In some cases the choice has had to
be limited by the photographs of monuments
actually available to the author.
2. LATE HINDU ART AND ARCHITECTURE
As we have already seen in our consideration of
the architecture of the Gupta Period, the temple
form was actively in process of evolutii n. This
was only the beginning of the final establishment