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| Home > Types Of Sculpture > Techniques and Expressions > Analogies in Expression
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| | Analogies in Expression
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Indian sculptors had employed for the plastic forms of the figure types that are very general and can not be much differentiated. But the volume and solidity of rounded mass in figures are emphasized. Somewhere crystalline faceting is also used to express the horrible and unattractiveness. And the linear elements appearing as sinuous contours or drapery folds are actually subordinated to their general pattern-types.
With the help of the method called `development`, deeply curved and sinuous outlines is converted into spatial statements. The line is always set out on a regularly curving or undulating course & can be said as spatially `complete` as it were before its starting, keeping close to the general pattern. Thus basically the time-element in the art, the line, is subordinated to a closed spatial idea. It can be said as a kind of visual expression of time, appears as a series of ever-recurring cycles. A beautiful use of the sinuous and undulant patterned line found in Indian sculpture is seen in some of landscape and vegetation designs on shrines of all ages.
From the above details, it can be concluded, the generalized forms of Indian sculpture should be called geometrical. In one more sense they are even more general, as they are less differentiated from each other. But the solution of this phenomenon lie in the field of reference given by the suggestive inflexions of Indian sculptured forms. As purely geometrical forms don`t need any references from outside of their own class-system. They are mathematical & based on convention without implying any particular instances of their occurrence. Of course, most of them are purely imaginary, and can only be instanced at the risk of introducing in their `meaning` when there is an inclusion of any alien symbolism as emotive and associational elements that result in totally irrelevant meaning than its conventional meaning.
By using these various means the Indian sculptor developed his forms. But the functions of these forms, the meaning behind their appearance, meaning of every technique of forms are some of the important aspects of studying Indian sculpture. If the stone is regarded as parallel to the mouthed sounds of speech, contour and recession as parallel to words, then the forms no doubt, represent the basic units of expression in the sculpture. But what the forms like these mean & how their extraordinary sense of quality can be conveyed, is of great interest.
The Indian texts like the Pratimamanalakshanam and the Vishnudharmottaram, helps in making it clear that an Indian sculptors, while making any part of a human body, like a leg, hand, lip or eye, first made it the shape of some other thing, and then attribute to it. For example-
 The Apsarases of Khajuraho are carved with eyes that are as per the following texts can be recognized as fish-shaped. Though, Indian poetry helps us in understanding of this with its stock epithet used for the eyes of a pretty girl, `silver fishes`. Such an apprehension made in the quick & flickering glances of a long-eyed girl like fish in a dark pools clearly describes the meaning that is to be to be offered to the spectator`s mind in the plastic image. And really this is influential not less than in case of the poetic context.
For many other parts of the body same process is described and with it poetical analogies are also suggested. The trunk of an elephant is mentioned to indicate the shoulder and arm, or the hip and thigh. The bill of a parrot, which is also known as the bird of love, is described for the high & elegant Aryan nose. The lower petal of that of the Sesame flower denotes the gentle lower lip and so on.
But this is just a formal suggestion that is conveyed by the actual modulation in the surfaces of the conventional sense-units with the help of which the figure is composed, and the forms are made capable for transmission of an emotional charge. It looks somewhat strange that virtually the same `situations` were found in repeated manner throughout the history of an Indian art. These situations were constant in general appeal but though their expression they are related with different contexts. Similarly, varied detail can also be noted in its development.
Therefore, the `meaning` of forms is rooted in their suggestions of similar evocative forms seen previously or it is remembered in relation of the other frame of references. And the forms are not merely mentioned to mean the strict geometrical forms but refer to particular referents in real experience from past, they must mean to have a `poetic significance`. `Poetic significance is very much distinct from that of the prose sense of straight & direct analysis and far more powerful in generating emotional effects.
The difference that exists between the forms of feeling and forms of analysis is very much important when the art is considered as a whole. And it can be clearly noticed with comparing an Indian or Mexican sculpture with the art of later classical Europe. Generally, forms of feeling are meant to give references that are in broader units. And their deceptively bland or general finish can force the eyes to believe that the forms are simple or even crude `geometric` in the modern terms. But above they are not geometric. As forms they always have this reference outside of themselves to a nexus of associated experiences that are taken at its descriptive level.
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