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Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books
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On Ancient Central-Asian Tracks : vol.1 |
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mud plaster with their friable surface of thin stucco painted
in tempera.
I need not describe here how this task was accomplished
in spite of the very trying conditions of work, and the safe
packing done with such scanty materials as I could im-
provise. My satisfaction was great when, on unpacking the
cases more than two years later, I found that the great care
taken had allowed all these remains of painted mud plaster
to reach the British Museum in safety. There it became
possible for my devoted friend and assistant, Mr. F. H.
Andrews, to assure their preservation by an ingenious
method of mounting on plaster of Paris reinforced with
expanded aluminium. By carefully joining up various frag-
ments we recovered thus considerable portions of fresco com-
positions forming part of the painted friezes which once
decorated the rotunda wall higher up.
All the fresco remains thus preserved represent typical
scenes of Buddhist iconography. Thus in the specimen shown
in Fig. 55 we see the Buddha dressed in the mendicant's
red-brown robe, standing with his right hand raised in the
well-known 'gesture of protection'. By his side stand six
disciples with heads shaved as monks. The scene is clearly
laid in a garden or grove, but not enough is left to determine
the particular legend illustrated from Buddha's life story.
However, it is the artistic treatment in composition, de-
sign and colouring, rather than the iconographic purport,
which gives to all the fresco remains from the Miran shrines
their special interest and great value. Buddhist as the sub-
jects are, all details in the artistic presentation are derived
from Hellenistic models. It may suffice here to point to the
large straight eyes of the teacher and disciples, so different
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168
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525
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537
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550
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561
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571
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578
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