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Ananda Coomaraswamy - Review of Kramrisch's Indian Sculpture

This review summarizes the book "Indian Sculpture" by Stella Kramrisch. It discusses how the book deals with Indian sculpture as conditioned by the Indian craftsman and focuses on form rather than iconography. It provides an overview of the chronological development and styles of Indian sculpture from prehistoric times through the classical and medieval periods. Key points covered include the Indus Valley style, Mauryan sculpture, the classical period from the 2nd to 8th centuries AD, and the achieved heights of Gupta art.

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128 views4 pages

Ananda Coomaraswamy - Review of Kramrisch's Indian Sculpture

This review summarizes the book "Indian Sculpture" by Stella Kramrisch. It discusses how the book deals with Indian sculpture as conditioned by the Indian craftsman and focuses on form rather than iconography. It provides an overview of the chronological development and styles of Indian sculpture from prehistoric times through the classical and medieval periods. Key points covered include the Indus Valley style, Mauryan sculpture, the classical period from the 2nd to 8th centuries AD, and the achieved heights of Gupta art.

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Review

Author(s): A. K. Coomaraswamy
Review by: A. K. Coomaraswamy
Source: Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 54, No. 2 (Jun., 1934), pp. 219-221
Published by: American Oriental Society
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Coomaraswamy,Indian Sculpture 219

gis igam ivaikaki, said of Mahavira). A rare slip like that does
not prevent the book as a whole from having a high value. Like
all the books which Professor Lanman has edited, it contains every
possible help for the reader that typography and arrangement can
give.
W. NORMANBROWN.
University of Pennsylvania.

Indian Sculpture. By STELLA KRAMRISCH. Heritage of India


Series, Y. M. C. A., Calcutta, and OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS,
1933. Pp. 240, 116, with ills. and map.
"There is something so strong, and at the same time unique, in
any Indian work of art that its ' Indianness ' is felt first of all....
How this Indianness is expressed in terms of relation between line,
surface, volume, and other elements of visualisation, will be dealt
with here. . .. Indian sculpture will be dealt with as conditioned
by the Indian craftsman " (Preface). The author is dealing only
incidentally with iconography, with style only as an " indispensable
preliminary," and fundamentally with psychology. One may agree
that " The study of form and the study of motifs are two different
subjects," ' but to say that " the latter has nothing to do with art "
(p. 203) is the same as to say that the raison d'etre of the art has
nothing to do with its existence. Dr. Kramrisch's clearly written,
well illustrated and well documented volume is nevertheless within
its chosen limits probably the best existing introduction to the
subject. Chronology is dealt with from two points of view, per-
petual and accidental; the life of the art represents a ceaseless
interaction of these enduring and transitory forces -" The phrase
' classically Indian' refers more to the quality than to the chron-
ology of art in India." As to the importance of ethnic influences,
which is considerably stressed, I can only say that the attempted
ethnic distinction of Aryan and un-Aryan has constantly less and
1 Where the author says " form " and "motifs," I should say " aspect "
and "form." The author seems to think of "motif " merely as a "pat-
tern," not as " meaning," to identify " motif " rather with the name of the
idea to be expressed than with the idea itself. The integration of a work
of art is synonymous with the conformity of its aspect (aesthetic surface)
with the form of the idea to be expressed; as in the case of "a word and
its meaning."
8

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220 Reviews of Books

less meaning for me as such, and comes more and more to imply
a distinction of angelic and human from chthonic and animal, or
in other words of active from potential levels of being within a
given circle of experience.
The Indus Valley style is a late development of paleolithic
achievement, preserving only " a phantom of its pristine force."
On the other hand, much of the characteristic feeling and many of
the formulae of the later art can already be recognized; multiple
heads on limbs, for example, here as always "represent stages of
one movement and have to be understood dynamically (see also
figures radiating from one centre) . . . in the simultaneity of
their presence." The prehistoric terracottas, such as those of
Mathurd " with their serene far-sightedness " link the Indus Valley
with the later art. Mauryan sculpture is of the same stock, and
typically " urbane," expressing a " sated and civilised approval of
an earth-bound sense of being alive; " neither this account, nor an
attribution of an " inane burliness " to the colossal Yaksa figures
seems adequately to evaluate their monumental qualities.
The classical period, as defined above, extends from the second
century B. C., to the eighth A. D. The treatment of volume re-
mains the specific medium throughout. Nothing in Indian sculp-
ture surpasses the reliefs of Bhajd, "foundations which, through
the coming centuries, were to uphold the structure of the subse-
quent phases of the classical art," or those of Kdrli, where "this
primevally surging plastic mass now becomes impressed with a
knowledge of the stateliness and self-sufficiency of the human
physique." Mathurd is " heavy with the burden of Mauryan tra-
dition . . . the naturalism of Mathura has physical mass for its
substance and sensual appeal for its aim." The art of Gandhdra
is " distinguished by a weary eclecticism." The art of Veftg!
"refined what it had come to inherit, and transformed it into the
deadly beauty of life at its fullest;' there is an approach towards
the dimension of depth (" a dimension which originates within
and has not one direction "), " not of the eye and its illusions, but
derived from a dynamic relatedness of volumes." "The face as a
spiritual physiognomy is yet unknown; " whereas in Mathura we
had "the fullness of sense perception and enjoyment," in Vefig!
"the intensity of this experience transcends the experience itself."
In Gupta art " The long-prepared miracle of transubstantiation
has come true. Hindrances have been dissolved; the human body,

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Coomaraswamy,Indian Sculpture 221

as given form to, does not stand for physical appearance. It is the
form of the movement of life. The 'without ' when transferred
into the 'within' becomes identical there with the beyond....
The gesture, in its origin an act, exists now in the timeless state
in which it establishes itself. . . . Whatever action is suggested,
this-takes place in a dimension where time is at rest and does not
pass." That is just as in Byzantine art the image of the Panta-
krator expresses the consciousness " Before Abraham I am ", and
in Indian literature the Buddha on Vulture Peak announces,
" My awakening is from the beginning of the world." Gupta art
establishes norms which prevail throughout continental India, and
affects the whole subsequent development of art in southern and
eastern Asia.
Just because it was felt that the highest levels had thus been
touched, the fundamental purpose of the later, mediaeval art,
though in fact as art it falls away from demonstration to allusion,
seeks more than anything else to preserve what had been found;
the codifications of the gilpa gastras have the same end in view,
and have indeed largely achieved their purpose, for in actual fact
" nothing in Indian art is ever forgotten, any of its monuments is
but one more version, be it more conscious and conventionalised
than immediate, of an everlasting past." All this survives at the
present day only amongst the "illiterate," only the folk arts are
now "oclassically Indian," while the bourgeois and even the aristo-
cratic milieus have broken with the past. The instinct which
sought to preserve was the right one; for the whole culture had
its being and significance, not that novelties might be propounded
or that individual peculiarities might be expressed (" Individual
problems did not exist. . . . Portraiture belongs to civilisations
that fear death "), but in order that the individual at any time
might have the opportunity to be reminded of the summit levels of
realisation.
The full descriptions of the Plates, and thirty-seven pages of
Notes, Bibliography, and Indices, add greatly to the value of the
book. In connection with Fig. 38 it may be observed that Dr. T.
N. Ramachandran (in Papers published by the Rao Sahim G. V.
Ramamurthi Pantulu's 70th Birthday Celebration Committee,
which I know only in an offprint) has recently connected the
Cakravartin types of Jaggayapeta, Amaravat-, and Goli with the
MandhattuJdtacka; in fig. 17, the figure above the Ndga king is
his daughter, see JRAS, 1928, p. 630.

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