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Be the first one to comment. Gill worked in truly difficult conditions. Not only was it often unbearably hot, but this was still tiger country, and the fierce Bhil people had never come to terms with invaders, whether Hindu or Moghul emperors or 19th Century British military.
What Gill and other visitors saw, having climbed ropes and ladders, to reach the caves — the original stone stairs had long gone — was architecture of a very high order and sculpture and paintings that took the breath away. Here, Buddhist monks had gazed on thousands of lustrous images of the lives the Buddha — Siddhartha Gautama — had lived before this 6th Century Indian prince took up teaching and inspired a way of thinking and being practiced by hundreds of millions around the world today.
Between images of the Buddha, were sensuous representations of glamorous princes and princesses, of animals, palaces, silks, jewellery, of lovemaking and life in all its mortal richness. Some of the images shocked Victorian sensibilities and are still condemned by religious zealots unable to comprehend that what these Indian artists saw was a joyous vision of natural fecundity and divine beauty. Along with the1st Century AD architecture, these paintings showed remarkable affinities to classical Greek art.
This was not coincidence, but evidence of a Greco-Indian culture that had spread from the 4th Century BC expeditions of Alexander the Great. It stretched through Hellenistic kingdoms and trade routes from the Mediterranean to Persia, Afghanistan and India — with Ajanta along the way — to distant China and Japan.
Newly armed with a camera as well as brushes, Gill set to work again. Concern for the treasures of Ajanta grew, as did the number of intrepid experts and treasure hunters, some of whom did more than carve their names on statues: they scraped paintings from walls which crumbled into dust. One of the few known surviving paintings to have left Ajanta intact is in the care of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts today. In , Lady Herringham, suffragette and art patron, began further copies with help from the Calcutta School of Art, and from the late s the Indian art historian Ghulam Yazdani made a comprehensive photographic survey of the art of Ajanta, published in four volumes between and To allow us to provide a better and more tailored experience please click "OK".
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