The Frescos of Ajant

Author(s): Christiana J. Herringham

Source: The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, Vol. 17, No. 87 (Jun., 1910), pp. 134+136-139
Published by: The Burlington Magazine Publications Ltd.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/858243
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King Edward VII

knowledge of the works of artin his palaces,
and an affectionateinterest in them. There
were few pleasures which His Majesty
more obviously enjoyed than personally
conducting his friends and guests over his
palace and pointing out the chief objects
of artistic and historical interest.
A royal collection inevitably absorbs
many objects of which the artistic value
is slight, but which have a personal,
historical or sentimental associationwhich
justifies their retention. To these feelings
King EdwardVII was extremely sensitive,
and he was always anxious to inquire into
the history and origin of such relics. By
special permission of His Majesty, a series
of' Notes on Pictures and Works of Art in

the Royal Collections' has been appearing

in our pages.
King Edward VII extended his royal
patronage to many bodies and associations
connected with the practice and promotion
of the fine arts, but this patronage was
never extended until the King had satisfied
himself beforehandthat the object in view
was one of national and public interest.
The King's sympathetic interest in the
National Gallery and the National Art
Collections Fund will be fresh in the
minds of our readers. Many other instances could be given of the quiet and unostentatiousway in which King EdwardVII
strove to assist the cause of the fine arts
in his dominions.

THE FRESCOS OF AJANTA

BY CHRISTIANA J. HERRINGHAM

HE chaityasof Ajanta,which
closely resemble
apsed
churches, and the ancient
viharas, or monastery halls,
are excavated in a great scarp
of a greyvolcanic rock.(amygdaloidal trap) in the wide
ravine which has been dug
out by the torrent Waghora, a stream of considerable volume in the rains, but normally only a
series of quiet pools among shelving boulders.
Ajanth is in the jagir, or fief, of Sir Salar Jung,
in the extreme north-west of the state of Hyderabad, Deccan.
I first visited Ajantaiin 19o6, and brought back
a small water-colour sketch of some colossal
figures. Mr. Binyon, to whom I showed this,
was so much impressed that I was encouraged in
the notion of returning and making some careful
specimen copies, in the hope that this might lead
to a more fully organized expedition which could
undertakea complete record.
Through the kindness of influential friends here
and in India, representationswere made to the
Hyderabad Government which led to their providing me with a protected camp, for Ajanta is in the
best shikairor hunting district in the jagir. This
Government also provided me with two young
men, trained in the School of Art in Bombay, and
several young Indian artists from Calcutta joined
us. Thus it seemed best to consider that we were
ourselves at work on that record which I had only

'

thought of as a later possibility. I hope we may

continue the work next winter.
The entrances to the 'Caves,' as they are called,
are from a path of varying level, not less than
1oo feet above the water. They follow the natural
semi-circular sweep of the cliff. It is fine wild
scenery. The name 'Cave,' which is applied in
India to all these ancient excavated shrines of the
Buddhist, Jain and early Hindu faiths, is very
misleading. They are all imitations of structural
building in a very advanced stage of development,
and though Ellora boasts the grandest halls, some
of those at Ajanth are very fine.
The dates of the paintings at Ajanta cannot be
fixed with absolute certainty. There is a mutilated
inscription outside Cave 16 which mentions some
kings of the Vakatakadynasty, and it would seem
that the son of a minister of one of these caused
this vihara to be excavated. One of the Seoni
copper-plate inscriptions records a grant of land
to a Brahman priest by a king, Pravara Sena, of
this same Vakataka dynasty, and mentions a
marriageof one of the kings with a princess of
the Imperial Gupta line; the name PravaraSena
also occurs in the Cave-inscription; but since on
the Seoni copper-platethere are two kings of this
name, and since in the Cave-inscription many
names are missing, it is not possible to get a
reliable synthesis. Mr. Vincent Smith, whom I
have consulted, is of opinion that Caves 16 and 17
are approximately of the year 500 A.D. There is a
very little painting at Ellora in the great hall in

136

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The Frescosof Ajantr

the cliff left by the hollowing out round the temple
of Kailas,which seems to be of the same character
as what I should call the earlierpainting of Caves
16 and 17. The Kailas excavations are, I believe,
thought to have been begun in 725 A.D. The
painting may or may not have been executed
immediatelyon the completion of the architectural
work of a Cave. Mr. Vincent Smith, however,
endorses the arguments of Professor Collins and
Biihler as to the age of the Caves 16 and 17 in
preference to Fleet's later date of the seventh
century, because they agree better with the architecture and palaeography,and with other dynastic
histories. One style of painting might have
continued during a considerable period.
The existing fresco painting is in the great halls
or viharas 16,' 17, I and 2, and in chaityas 9 and
io. There are a few other unimportantfragments.
Chaitya 9 is of very ancient construction, possibly
nearly 2oo B.C. It is scarcelyconceivable that the
painting is so old. At the back of the apse there
is a Buddha preaching to disciples, which, except
for wilful damage, is in extremely good preservation. It is simple and fine, and has certainly
affinity with the early period. Chaitya io is of
somewhat later date; no painting remains there,
except the erect Buddha or Bodhisatva figures on
the columns.2 The later painting in Caves 16 and
17 apparentlyrepresents the normal work of this
Indian school. In Cave 16, slightly the earlier,
nearlyeverythingis obscured, but in Cave 17 many
interesting subjects still remain intelligible. Caves
i and 2 are among the latest, and contain very fine
painting, wherein much change of style is evident.
The Ajantaicave paintings have hitherto been
described as the result of a single undertaking,
but in reality they fall into about six distinct
groups, representing various schools and periods,
rather than the steady development of one school.
The scale varies from much over life-size to what
one may roughly call quarter-life.
The condition of the frescos also varies. There
are still subjects which are undamaged and unfaded, while others which were copied by Major
Gill and Mr. Griffithshave ceased to exist. Burgess
says that some of these were destroyedwilfully. But
as Caves I, 2 and 17 are nearly covered with
painting, some not much damaged, and as these
halls measure about 65 feet square, what remains
is a not inconsiderable quantity. It is unfortunate
that Gill or Griffithsvarnished most of the frescos
to brighten the colours for the purposeof copying.
This varnish is now dirty and yellow, and has
seriously spoiled the pictures. The finest work
of all has, strange to say, escaped this disfigurement. It is on the wall to the left of the shrine in
Cave I, usually considered one of the latest Caves.
1 The numberingmerely indicates consecutive positions, and
begins with what is, perhaps, the most recent work,
2 Burgess describeslarge subjects on the walls,

The subject of the fresco may perhapsbe Gautama

Buddha (half-tone plate),3the prince standing and
stooping somewhat, as he looks out on the world
which he is about to enter, with an expression
of profound pity on his face. He wears a high,
jewelled head-dress and a loincloth, and holds in
his right hand a blue lotus. There are other personages round him, one of them a queen; all
have fine expressive features. The figure of the
queen, which is nude to the hips, is full and fine
in form, with a natural,not attenuated, waist. The
dignity and reposeful treatment of these figures,
their large design and noble characterization
equal in grandeur the finer statues of Egyptian
kings. The flesh tones of the prince are pale and
silvery. The queen is nearly black. In the
general colouring, sober reds and some vivid
pale blues and good bluish greens are introduced
among greys, browns and whites. The effect is
rich and quiet. The outlines are firm and well
modulated. This painting must presumably be
placed before the year 750, the latest possible date
for Buddhistic work, and it is probably Ioo years
earlier. It is not altogetherwithout affinityto the
early Brahman alto-relievosin the hall behind the
little Kailas at Ellora, but it is free from such
symbolismas additional arms and hands. Were it
not that the Cave must be a late one, I should
probablyhave been inclined to see lingering classic
influence in the fine proportions and in the grand
contours of the heads.
In Cave 17, occurs the subject reproduced in
colours in the frontispiece, from my watercolour copy. The size of the original is about
seven feet by five. I have unfortunately failed to
discover what incident is illustrated. The picture
is one of those darkened and spoiled by varnish.
At the top and bottom especially it is difficult to
make out the drawing, and the following details
have been completed by me: the further eye of
the king; the hand and mouth of the lady with
the flower; and the bill of the foremost goose.
There is also a hole in the body of the man
standing among the water plants. In copying, I
had to discover the original beneath a veil of dust
and clouding; portions of my copy must therefore
be regarded as a statement of all that prolonged
and careful observation can discover.
By far the largest quantity of the painting at
Ajantatis less than life-size,and consists of continuous stories, such as we are accustomed to see
in Mediaeval Italian wall decoration. These have
been considered to be incidents from the life of
Buddha, but they more apparently represent the
doings of kings and the court-life of the time.
The painting is, throughout, fine, scholarly work.
The types of face are usually definitely Indian,
and similar faces may be seen among the local
population at the present time. They have aquiline
3 From a photographby R. Puplick,Hyderabad, Deccan.

'37

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The Frescos of Ajant

'

noses, very long, heavily lashed eyes, small chins

and ratherfull mouths. There is in this group a
strong tendency to the small 'lion' waist, and the
seatedfiguresof kings are posed likethe later Hindu
deities, but there is in the frescos a command
of posture both of body and head which we
rarely find in the later work. There is also an
ideality in the faces which became almost too
abstract in the divine types of later Hindu art,and
was again forgotten by the Mahommedans,whose
interest lay in portraiture.
The feeling for expressive gesture in the hands
is most noteworthy. Perhaps late Roman work
can show similar action, but only Renaissance
Italian the same grace of gesture. The type of
hand favoured is long and narrow in the metacarpus, with slender, taper fingers and small nails.
Among the peasants at Ajanti a very curiously
long metacarpusis sometimes met with.
I am not acquainted with any other school of
painting except the Egyptian, where a dark skin is
taken as the normal type. The consequence of
this is that relief is almost entirely given to the
heads by means of their local colour, ratherthan by
light and shade. Most of the faces are a sort of reddish brown and tell as dark upon the background.
A favourite contrast is that of a king with pale
and yellowish flesh opposed to the bluish black
tones of the queen at his side ; or the complexions
are reversed. In the fresco represented in the
accompanying coloured illustration' there is quite
an assemblageof race types-black, fair,brown, red
and yellowish brown. Frequently, however, in the
original, the flesh colour has worn away leaving
only theterra-verdeunder-painting,ashas happened
frequently in early Italian pictures.
I have already alluded to several styles and
classes of painting in Caves I and 9, 16 and 17.
There are, besides,later developmentsof the narrative style of Cave 17, which we find in Caves I
and 2.

These are (I) a more emphatic and stylis-

tic manner, with more formalism in the drawing,

more action and less tenderness ; (2) a more popular, lively and forcible dramatic narrative, with
more incidents and less idealism.
In Cave 2 are three more, distinct styles : On
both the side walls of a secondary shrine we find
four or five elaborately posed, nearly nude lifesize figures. These are sinuous in outline, quite
Cimabuesque in proportion, attitude and general
feeling; the arrangement suggests bas-relief. The

late date of this cave indicates the period of the

painting. In a similar shrine on the opposite side
are corresponding decorations, and the figures on
the main west wall might, but for the type, be an
assemblage of Chinese sages; they are drawn with
a magnificent bravura. There is not much colour
left, but the somewhat caligraphic drawing
in forcible blacks and reddish browns is so
freely executed that one scarcely regrets the
destruction which has laid bare such vital work.
On a separate part of this west wall there is
a subject of men and white geese in a waterlily pool, which, though closely linked to the
earlier definitely Indian types of painting, suggests the freedom and at the same time the perfect
balance of the very best Chinese period. The
colour scheme is very
beautiful--brilliant white,
deep purple-brown, a vivid but rich malachitegreen, with touches of a clear red.
Further, in Cave 17 there are three paintings by
one hand very different from all the rest. They
are: (I) a hunt of lions and black buck; (2) a

hunt of elephants; and (3) an elephantsalaamingin

a king's court-the companion picture to No. 2.
These pictures are composed in a light and shade
scheme which can scarcely be paralleled in Italy
before the seventeenth century. They are nearly
monochrome (warm and cool greys understood),
except that the foliage and grass are dull green.
The whole posing and grouping is curiously
natural and modern, the drawing easy, light and
sketchy, and the painting suggestively laid in with
solid brush-strokes-in the flesh, not unlike some
examples of modern French painting. The
animals-horses, elephants, dogs and black buck
-are extremely well drawn.
The technique adopted, with perhaps some few
exceptions, is a bold, red line-drawingon the white
plaster. Sometimes nothing else is left. This
drawing gives all the essentials with force or
delicacy as may be required, and with knowledge
and intention. Next come a thinnish terra-verde
monochrome showing some of the red through
it; then the local colour; then a strengthening of
the outlines with blacks and browns giving great
decision, but also a certain flatness; last a little
shading if necessary. There is not very much
definite light and shade modelling, but there

is great definition given by the use of contrasting local colour and of emphatic blacks and
whites.

4See frontispiece,

I38

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41L
44

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Is

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GAUTAMA BUDDHA (?) FRESCO

IN CAVE I. AT AJANTA

THE FRESCOS OF AJANTAN

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