Sculpture and a Cattle God •
The Vertical Man : A Study in Primitive Indian Sculpture. By W. ' G. Archer. (Allen and Unwin. 15s.)
IN the south-west corner of Bihar live the Ahirs, a branch of the fairly numerous pastoral caste. At the small shrines in their villages are to be found stone and wooden figures of a cattle god, Bir Kuar, whose sole function, it appears, is to bring the buffaloes on heat. Mr. Archer's book is an attempt to explain the peculiar features of this sculpture, and to assess its aesthetic quality. His careful investigation and detailed study of the rituals and myths connected with Bir Kuar is a fascinating bit of detective work. At the same time ; he has painted an interesting miniature of peasant life in India, illustrated by many good pictures of the sculpture and some charming translations of folk-songs. He gives a very plausible explanation of the figures as representations of a hero who seems to be regarded sometimes as a fierce or kindly defender of the herds and sometimes as a man who has tragically abandoned his family ties in order to minister to the needs of his cattle.
Mr. Archer's treatment of the folk-lore is probably sound—it is certainly interesting and entertaining—but his art-criticism is less convincing. He has much to say of the fitness of the two " styles " to the materials used ; and there is great play with such phrases as " will to vital geometry." The naïve and simple style of these figures is what it is simply because the craftsmen who work for the Ahirs are poor and are busy. And the undeniable beauty of much of their work—there is considerable variation in quality—requires no elaborate theoretical justification. Mr. Archer calls this sculpture " primitive" and considers that it and other regional peasant styles represent a hitherto ignored aspect of Indian sensibility, parallel to but isolated from " official " and temple art. Naturally there are periods when Indian art has a refined and aristocratic quality, especi- ally when the patron was a great emperor or wealthy religious insti- tution. But the smaller Hindu courts were very close to the people in interests and tastes, and what may be called the really native sensibility frequently ousts or modifies an official or less "demo- cratic " art. The sculpture of Bharhut and Rajput painting are cases in point.
This Ahir sculpture is peasant art, poverty-stricken and isolated —and largely derivative, like the Bir Kuar myth itself with its intro- duction of features peculiar to the story of Krishna. This is not to decry the aesthetic merit of much of this work, but it has not the quality of such genuinely primitive sculpture as the figurines from the
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