NO. 48.— 1897.] ARCHAEOLOGICAL SURVEY, SIGIRIYA. 115 



paintings with those found in the Ajanta caves will fail to 



be convinced that artists trained in the same school, if not 



the very same hands, must have executed both Indian and 



Ceylon frescoes. The evidence to be drawn from dress and 



ornament, no less than from the quaint " tricks " of pose 



and colouring common to both alike, for differentiating race 



and complexion and representing expression, is irresistible. 



Mr. Griffiths' remarks on the Ajanta frescoes apply equally 



to the Sigiriya paintings. He says : — 



The artists who painted them were giants in execution. Even on 

 the vertical sides of the walls, some of the lines which were drawn with 

 one sweep of the brush struck me as being very wonderful ; but when 

 I saw long, delicate curves drawn without faltering with equal precision 

 upon the horizontal surface of a ceiling where the difficulty of 

 execution is increased a thousandfold, it appeared to me nothing less 

 than miraculous. One of the students when hoisted up on the 

 scaffolding, tracing his first panel on the ceiling, naturally remarked 

 that some of the work looked like child's work, little thinking that 

 what seemed to him up there rough and meaningless, had been laid in 

 by a cunning hand, so that when seen at its right distance every touch 

 fell into its proper place.* 



Mr. Griffiths continues : — 



The condition of mind in which these paintings were originated and 

 executed must have been very similar to that which produced the 

 early Italian paintings of the fourteenth century, as we find much that 

 is in common. Little attention paid to the science of art — regard had 

 more to the truthful rendering of a story than to a beautiful rendering 

 of it ; not that they discarded beauty, but they did not make it the 

 primary motive of representation. There is a want of aerial per- 

 spective—the parts are delicately shaded, not forced by light and 

 shade, giving the whole a look of flatness — a quality desired in mural 

 decoration.* 



Elsewhere Mr. Griffiths dwells on the admirable drawing 

 of heads and limbs, of ornament and dress, and specially of 

 f the true rendering of hair — one of the most difficult things 

 in the province of art " — praise fully borne out in the Ceylon 

 frescoes of Sigiriya. A further marked feature of these 

 ancient paintings is the predilection for the three-quarter 

 face — a characteristic that alone separates the level of art 



* Irid. Ant., vol. III.. 1871, p. 26. 



