India, Paintings from Ajanta Caves by Mandanjeet SinghReview by: J. Le Roy DavidsonThe Art Bulletin, Vol. 37, No. 4 (Dec., 1955), p. 293Published by: College Art AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3047622 .

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BOOK REVIEWS

INDIA, PAINTINGS FROM AJANTA CAVES, introduction

by Mandanjeet Singh, Greenwich, Conn., New York

Graphic Society (UNESCo World Art Series), 1954. Pp. II; 32 pls. $15.oo.

The group of Buddhist cave temples at Ajanta is, among other things, the main repository of early Indian painting. Consequently, Ajanta has tremendous

importance for art historical as well as aesthetic rea- sons. Contemporaneous paintings at Bagh, a few hundred miles to the northwest, have been all but obliterated in recent decades, while the few sixth or seventh century murals at Sittanavasal, near Pudukot- tai in the deep south, have been seriously damaged within the last twenty years. A few fragments of paint- ings at Ellora and at Badami in the Deccan are pitia- ble remnants of a former glory. One must go to

Sigiriya in Ceylon to find another important, if some- what less varied, complex of Indian paintings of the same period, and even these are heavily restored.

The present volume on Ajanta is the first of the UNESCO World Art Series "devoted to the rare art

masterpieces of the world." The New York Graphic Society will publish the entire series. The initial work, a huge, handsome book measuring thirteen by nearly nineteen inches, was printed in Italy. It consists of 32 large color plates, a brief introduction, and three half- tone illustrations, two of exterior views of the caves and one of an interior. Thus the volume is primarily a picture book and as such serves as a splendid introduc- tion to Indian painting of the fifth and sixth centuries. The color, when checked with memory, appears to be excellent and superior to any other reproductions of

Ajanta yet made. The selection of pictures in a book of this sort is always open to debate, and I, for one, would have liked a few illustrations with more com-

prehensive views of larger areas and some examples of the earlier paintings which date as far back as the second century B.C. But as a selected group of color

plates intended, as stated, to acquaint a large public with "an art which holds a supreme position in Asian art history," this book admirably fulfills its purpose.

For the art historian this volume brings into sharp focus the great need for substantial monographs on Indian antiquities. Ajanta has fared better than most sites in India in terms of interest and publication. Yet no comprehensive study of these temples has yet ap- peared. Even G. Yazdani's four-volume work1 on Ajanta is concerned primarily with the paintings, spe- cifically with subject matter, and only incidentally with questions of dating. The architecture and sculptures of the temples are almost completely ignored. Further- more, no attempt is made to place any one of these arts in its cultural milieu. This is not meant as a criticism of Yazdani, but as a commentary on the amount of work that still remains to be done before we can arrive at a real understanding of Ajanta's

position in the history of art. The present situation is much as if Chartres were known to us only by splendid publications of the stained glass windows with little or no reference to the architecture, the sculpture, or even to the times of the cathedral.

For the study of many important sites there are only sundry, often inaccurate, pamphlets and guidebooks. The different series of Memoirs published by the vari- ous branches of the Archaeological Survey of India contain much valuable information, but, at best, these volumes provide only basic source materials. What are some of the great monuments to be studied? There

are, for example, the sculptural caves of Badami in the

Deccan, the many temples at nearby Aihole and Pat-

tadakal, the nearly thirty temples of Bhubaneswar in

Orissa, and the equally extensive Khajuraho group in Central India. These are the better known sites. There are hundreds of other individual temples and

temple compounds all over India. Some, like the two

standing temples of Kodumbalur, perhaps the most beautiful of all early Chola monuments in South India, are unknown to most scholars in India as well as in the West. There is, also to mention one other site, the Hindu stone city of Vijayanagar (nine square miles of ruins near Hampi), which was described as one of the most magnificent cities of the world by Portuguese travelers of the sixteenth century.

The UNESCO volume on Ajanta surely will bring the undisputed beauty of at least one phase of Indian art to a large public. Perhaps it will even arouse some scholars to take a new look at the old arts of India.

J. LE ROY DAVIDSON

University of Georgia

I. G. Yazdani, Ajanta, London, 4 parts, I (1930), II (I933), III (1946), IV (1954)-

GEORGE HEARD HAMILTON: The Art and Architec- ture of Russia (The Pelican History of Art), Balti-

more, Penguin Books, 1954- Pp. 320, I80 pIs. $8.50.

It is to the credit of the Pelican History of Art to have included in its series a comprehensive survey of Russian art, a subject which too often is considered as peripheral and exotic. The book under review is a

scholarly and, on the whole, well-documented piece of work. The author has taken advantage of research in the Russian language and he is not, perhaps, to be blamed if his information is not always completely up- to-date. The study of Russian art has progressed con-

siderably since I. E. Grabar's classic work (19o8- 1915), and it is to be regretted that Professor Hamil- ton has been unable to use the new History of Rus- sian Art, published by the Academy of Sciences of the

USSR, of which the first two volumes (1953 and 1954) are now available in this country. Another drawback for which the author cannot be held responsible is that

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