India Discovered by John Keay

Author:John Keay [Keay, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-00-739964-2
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 1981-06-06T18:30:00+00:00

From the brackets hidden beneath the great roof cornices to the toe-level elephant frieze, and including the elaborately fretted windows, every surface was alive with carving ‘of marvellous elaboration and detail’. Every deity in the Hindu pantheon is supposed to be represented at Belur – and most of them many times over. There must be more than 500 elephants in the bottom frieze alone.

Moving to the double temple at Halebid, Fergusson’s dismissive attitude began to crumble. Here the elephant frieze was 710 feet in length and ‘containing not less than 2000 elephants, most of them with riders and trappings sculptured as only an oriental can represent the wisest of brutes’. Above this was a frieze of lions, then a scroll ‘of infinite beauty and variety of design’, then a frieze of horsemen, another scroll, and a colossal relief, 700 feet long, of scenes from the Ramayana. Above this were beasts and birds, another frieze, an elaborate cornice, windows of pierced slabs of stone, and panels of sculpture. On one side, in place of the windows, there was a frieze of Hindu deities, each five feet six inches high and extending to 400 feet. It included at least fourteen Siva and Parvati groups and considerably more Vishnus.

Some of these are carved with a minute elaboration of detail which can only be reproduced by photography, and may probably be considered as one of the most marvellous exhibitions of human labour to be found even in the patient East. It must not, however, be considered that it is only for patient industry that this building is remarkable&. The variety of outline, and the arrangement and subordination of the various facets in which it is disposed, must be considered as a masterpiece of design in its class. The artistic combination of horizontal with vertical lines, and the play of outline and of light and shade, far surpass anything in Gothic art. The effects are just what the medieval architects were often aiming at, but which they have never attained so perfectly as was done at Halebid.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.