''To use the terms of Indian philosophy, most art expresses the play of Prakriti; Buddhistic art in its most characteristic creations expresses the absolute repose of the Purusha; Hindu art tends to combine the Purusha and Prakriti in one image. But in the earlier stone sculptures it is the sublime repose, tranquil power, majestic concentration of the Deity which the whole image principally represents even in poses expressive of violent movement; the movement is self-contained, subordinated to the repose.
We find the same motive in some of these bronzes, notably in the wonderful majestically self-possessed thought and power of the Kalasamhara image of Shiva ... but for the most part it is life and rhythm that predominate in the form even when there is no actual suggestion of movement. This is the motive of the Nataraja, the Dancing Shiva, which seems to us to strike the dominant note of this art; the self-absorbed concentration, the motionless peace and joy are within, outside is the whole mad bliss of the cosmic movement. But even other figures that stand or sit seem often to represent only pauses of the dance; often the thought and repose are concentrated in the head and face, the body is quick with potential movement.
This art seems to us to reflect in bronze the lyrical outburst of the Shaivite and Vaishnava devotional literature while the older sculpture had the inspiration of the spiritual epos of the Buddha or else reflects in stone the sublimity of the Upanishads.
The aim of a renascent Indian art must be to recover the essence of these great motives and to add the freedom and variety of the soul's self-expression in the coming age when man's search after the Infinite need no longer be restricted to given types or led along one or two great paths, but may at last be suffered to answer with a joyous flexibility the many-sided call of the secret Mystery behind Life to its children.''
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''the marvellous genius and skill in the treatment of the cosmic movement and delight of the dance of Shiva ''
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''the sublime repose, tranquil power, majestic concentration of the Deity''
