National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

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emp t ment for their skill along the Silk Route running between Khotan and

China on which Mirán stood. The partial shaving of the heads of the garland-

carrying boys yi b s is almost certainly Indian an-d has spiritual significance of ancient

sanction. Although trading connexions with China by this route must have been

considerable there is nothing in the Mirán paintings definitely indicative of

borrowings from Chinese art.

The technique of the Mirán painting, all in tempera, follows well-developed

methods. Assuming that the design is first drawn on paper it is transferred to the

whitened wall-surface either by pouncing through the pricked drawing or by other

means familiar to craftsmen. The transferred outlines are then lightly traced over

with a pale colour to fix them. The masses of colour are next laid in with the

brush, shading tints are added to suggest chiaroscuro, and the contours are strength-

ened with soft brush lines of red or dark grey which blend to some extent with the

colour masses, giving softness and roundness to the edges. Finally touches of black

or red are added for emphasis where most effective, and white for high lights and

the white of the eyes. The sharp hard line of the later paintings, such as those of

Turfán, is never used in the N_irán work. The colours are few and mainly those

readily obtainable from mineral sources, from lamp black and indigo, and pos-

sibly occasionally other vegetable origins. The shading tint on flesh is either a

warm umber or a delicate pearly grey, and is disposed in accordance with a fixed

conventional system.

Considerable changes in conception and treatment mark the painting of a later

period, represented by the examples on sites farther west, in the direction of

Khotan Khádalik, Farhád-Bég-yailaki, and Balawaste. The doctrine of the

`Lesser Vehicle' followed in Káshgar, as recorded by Hsüan-tsang in the seventh

century, was less favoured in neighbouring districts. There are no garland-bearing

putti, and winged figures no longer appear. The padmásana now invariably supports

the Buddha and in similar function is extended to most of the celestial figures.

Costumes are elaborated and, excepting that of the Buddha, are often represented

as made of richly figured stuffs with patterns sometimes suggestive of Western

derivation. The vesica appears, generally, in highly decorative form, and the

nimbus has lost its simplicity, being patterned in keeping with the vesica. The

essentially human quality, the easy grace and almost domestic note, that distin-

guishes personages of the Mirán paintings, gives place to figures of complaisant,

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inscrutable visage, posing dramatically in accordance with canonicalrescri t, and

p p

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