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

408 CEYLON AND SOUTH-EAST ASIA
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reclining Venus by Cranach is from the great Brahma on a hamsa - set in a kind of foliate
composition with a single deity - in this case, capital planning; in India, one can think only
Italian versions of the subject by Giorgione and
Titian. From the illustrative point of view the
polylobed embrasure, and the curling garlands
in the shape of an ox-yoke or omega that run
composition is entirely clear, but it completely across the field of the panel. Every available
lacks the dynamic, awe-inspiring character of space is filled with twining leaf-forms with
Indian reliefs of the Rdmdyana. There is a playful
inverted calyx cups suspended from beaded
feeling about the representation, as though stems forming vertical divisions in the orna-
the figures were moving in the measures of an ment. The carving is of a crispness and
elaborate ballet. The pyramidal shape of the extravagant richness that are typical of this final
main compositional elements, of course, lends
itself remarkably well to filling the chaitya form
of the tympanum. The interior of the serpentine
border framing the panel and surrounding areas
'Rococo' phase of Khmer art.
The most spectacular architectural achievement
in this last chapter of Cambodian history
was the laying out of the new capital at Angkor
is covered with a luxuriant floral ornament that Thorn by Jayavarman VII. This foundation
has as its basic design a curling fern frond motif, and the earlier capital of Yasodharapura were
not unlike the cloud and water patterns of not cities in our, or the Indian, sense of the word
Chinese T'ang sculpture. But this resemblance as centres of population. The vast enclosure
is certainly to be regarded as accidental.
within the encompassing walls and moat was
This same basic floral design is even more reserved only for temples, and the palaces of the
noticeable in the lintels at Banteai Srei [338].
These reliefs are, as in the case of the tympana,
the last and most florid stage in the evolution of
king and nobles, together with buildings for the
military and judicial branches of government.
The great body of the population serving these
a member typical of Cambodian architectural institutions lived outside, around the various
decoration from its beginnings. Indeed, in this artificial reservoirs or barais and the banks of
final example many of the essential features are the Siemreap River. Vatican City, or the
copied from the arrangement of earlier reliefs. Kremlin in Tsarist days, offer themselves as
These borrowings would include the general remote European parallels for this type of
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338. Banteai Srei, lintel with Brahma on a hamsa