IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
472 THE FRESCOES OF MIRAN CH. XLII
European look, assurance is provided by the peculiar pose of the curving fingers on the left hand of the last Arhat below on the right, which appear at the neck from inside the robe. It is the familiar place for the left hand, as hundreds of classical statues of the Roman period show it emerging from inside the toga.
The Graeco-Buddhist sculpture of Gandhara has long
been known to abound in exactly corresponding examples of poses and drapery borrowed straight from classical modelling. But it was reserved for the fresco fragments brought to light at this most distant corner of the Tarim
Basin to prove that this dependence on Western art was at first equally close as far as painting is concerned and traceable even in methods of technique. In the latter respect no more striking testimony could be desired than that supplied by the regular employment of methods of light and shade ' wherever flesh is painted in these frescoes. The use of ' chiaroscuro,' so well known to classical painting, had never before been observed in the old pictorial work of India, Central Asia, or the Far East. The frescoes of Miran display it invariably in all exposed
portions of the body. The usual method, as seen both in ii
the frieze panel just described and in the ' Angels ' of the ii
dado, consisted of applying over the flesh tints different it
shades of grey, pale or warm, for the shadows round the face, i
under the eyes, or elsewhere. But occasionally the effect of ii
high lights ' is skilfully obtained by allowing the lighter 2
tint of the flesh to show through in the proper places from 1
under the stronger pink outlines of the lips or similar features. Iii some cases these ' high lights ' are cleverly laid in by bold brush-work in white. Here and there this
is thick enough to catch a real ' high light,'—a method I
distinctly reminiscent of the treatment which is natural to encaustic painting, and is actually illustrated by the sur- viving examples of classical painting in wax. These and many other details of technique make it obvious that the painters of these Miran frescoes had inherited from their
Western masters well-established methods of producing a finished effect with such economy of work as constant application demanded.
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