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Ajanta: Cave 1, detail of painting on ceiling, with flower panels

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CollectionsArthur Llewellyn Basham
Title: Ajanta: Cave 1, detail of painting on ceiling, with flower panels
Author(s): Photographer: Arthur Llewellyn Basham
Keywords: Cave I c. 500 A.D. [Ajanta];architecture;murals;mounted transparency set
Series/Report no.: Basham Collection
Description: The other figured decorations are described in the same poetic language as the Beautiful Bodhisattva, Though these panels deal with much less important subjects, they are nonetheless important in themselves, for they complete the overall atmosphere of quiet dignity, This is also true of the flower panels, long important to Indian art in their role as graceful subordinate decoration, Floral motifs are suggestive of paradisiac settings and in their context are both real and unreal things, Celestial or lesser deities, like those in the center panel of the slide, have their proper place among the flowers, We see that the compositions painted on the ceiling of the nave do not purport to create infinite space, rather, they do suggest architectural boundaries to the inner space of the hall and have no illusionistic tendencies to break into these boundaries,
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/1885/163512
Other Identifiers: ANUA 682-744

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