An introduction to the origin of art in India
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Art as it originated was a way of expression of human being. It goes back to the Paleolithic times. Man painted in rock shelters, engraved on pebbles and other objects. At this stage it can not be understood as an activity indulged in for pleasure. It was indelibly linked with the social and economic fabric of man's life. In Stone Age man was surrounded by a hostile environment. He subsisted exclusively on animals and vegetation. To ensure a successful hunt he would draw the animals on the rock canvas. The drawing is part of the ritual, just as dancing and singing also developed as a ----------
Much later in historic times when tribes became settled the art form practiced in the caves was carried on to their dwellings. The warlis and Bhils paint the walls of their huts. The warlis paint their sacred space before an auspicious occasion like the wedding. Art performs the same function of ensuring fertility, prosperity and welfare of the home. If the earliest paintings of the Paleolithic man constituted the animals as the centre of his universe (they are depicted as larger than life size with a deified status) by the time man lives in settlements the deified status goes to the Goddess or Gods sometimes mounted on animals. The space enclosing the Gods also incorporates vegetation, the sun and moon, human couples in the act of procreation. In the Stone Age man depicts animals in the process of procreation. The paintings of warlis and Bhils exude joy they celebrate life that is pulsating with energy.
The tradition of painting in the caves continues in an urban setting although the caves are for removed from habitation in early historic times. The subject matter here is the lives of kings and Queens and the episodes of from the life of Bodhisattvas and Buddhas or Jinas and the Hindu Gods and Goddesses. This tradition depended for its survival exclusively on the patronage of kings and nobility. It continued to adorn the palaces of the Rajputs during the Mughal rule. Various schools like the Kangra and Basohli were flourishing in 17th 18th C. The subject matter revolved around the life and alliances of Krishna.
The origin of sculpture goes back to the Stone Age man. He was obsessed with the fear of spirits. To assuage them he would install a stone, worship it and make sacrifices to it. The spirits were both natural and ancestral. The megalithic people buried their dead and constructed monumental stones over them and worshipped them. The elaborate structures indicate a surplus.
The change over from worshipping the ancestral spirits to a personal God is reflected in making icons of the God with his specific attributes. The evolution can be traced in the rock art of India, which has a history of 10,000 years. Royal patronage was given to various religious sects like Buddhism, Jainism, and Hinduism. The sculpture of early Buddhist stupas with royal patronage like Bharhut, Sanchi, Mathura needs no mention. Alongwith these structures were with rich exquisitely carved sculptures, but there were other structures being built vying with them. These were being financed by the merchant class and the rich monasteries on the trade routes. They are the richly embellished cave viharas of the Monks on the trade routes. After Buddhism is popularity diminished they were to fall into disrepair.
But the temples continued to enjoy rich patronage. Special treatises were written to instruct the sculptors in measurement.
The surplus the king enjoyed went into building more and more elaborate temples with an equally elaborate pantheon of Gods and Goddesses. The primitive fertility rites acquired the form of tantra which seeps into art forms including later Buddhist art. The temple becomes a symbol of the might of royal power sometimes it is even used as a garrison during military conquests as in Tanjore.