| Specifications |
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Publisher: Shubhi Publications, Gurgaon |
| Author Nihar Ranjan Ray | |
| Language: English | |
| Pages: 190 | |
| Cover: HARDCOVER | |
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8.5x5.5 Inch |
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Weight 400 gm |
| Edition: 2025 | |
| ISBN: 9788182903609 | |
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HBQ778 |
| Delivery and Return Policies |
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Usually ships in 5 days |
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Returns and Exchanges accepted within 7 days |
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Free Delivery |
Recent
archaeological discoveries and historical researches have pushed the history of
India back to at least three thousand years before the birth of Christ. But the
first organised art activity in India in bigger scale and durable material that
we have any definite knowledge of even to this day and of which datable
examples have come down to us in any recognisable number belong to the period
of the Mauryas. The chalcolithic age to which belongs the civilisation of the
Indus valley has bequeathed to us relics, few in number but varied in subject
and treatment, that may safely be said to belong to the domain of high art with
a long artistic tradition and experience behind it. Indeed, the art represented
by the reliefs on the seals and figure sculptures in the round found at
Harappa, Mohenjo-Daro and other sites in the Punjab, Sind, Baluchistan and
further north and east is already highly developed, sophisticated and
conscious, and expresses most frankly and significantly the culture-ideology of
a people urban in upbringing, highly sophisticated in the luxury of living, and
probably industrial and feudal in socio-economic organisation. Like the
civilisation itself its art also had already reached the creative climax of a
tradition. Into the relation of this art with the art of the contemporary
civilised world it is not the place to enter; but it must needs be told that
this art inspite of its affinities with contemporary Mediterranean art has its
own essential qualities and its own character of form that link it with the art
of India of the historical period. Yet the fact remains that the art of the
Indus valley still largely an unknown factor in so far as it remains
chronologically unrelated and unexplained and nothing definite is known of what
happened along the arrow of time between the final phase of the Indus valley
civilisation and the civilisation that flourished in the Ganges valley more
than two thousand years later.
The
earliest that the Ganges valley is alleged to have offered to us in the shape
and form of what may be called an art object is a small gold tablet
representing a naked woman standing on her legs in symmetrical rigidity, with
exaggerated hips and sexual organs, heavy and clumsy ornaments and in a rigidly
angular composition. Dug out of a tomb near Lauriya, it was identified by
Bloch, the explorer, as the iconic representation of the Earth goddess and was
ascribed by him. to about the 8th or 7th century B.C. There can hardly be any
doubt that such images in metal, and perhaps also in clay, served as
fetishistic symbols. There are passages in the Rgveda and later also in the
Grhyasūtras which can be interpreted to
suggest that figures of gods and animals were fashioned in metal and clay for
such purposes. A small gold tablet similar to that found at Lauriya and a small
gold figure, forming part of the relics from the ruins of the Piprahwa Stūpa
evidently Buddhistic, and belonging to a period not earlier than that of the
Mauryas, reveal the same motive and treatment as those of the Lauriya tablet,
so that the latter can hardly be ascribed to so early a period as has been
done.
Maurya art flourished under the Maurya Dynasty from 323-185
BC. There were two categories of Maurya art court or royal art, and folk or
popular art. Examples of court art include the Royal Palace at Pataliputra, the
Great Stupa, and the famous Pillar of Ashoka. Rock cut caves at sites like
Barabar Hills also exhibited Maurya art. Folk art included pottery, sculptures
like the Yaksi Didarganj, and terracotta figurines. Sunga period art following
the Mauryas can be seen at locations like Sanchi and Amaravati.
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