It is no easy task to attempt an overview of the artistic character of Southern India under Vijayanagara and the successor states. As must be clear by now, architecture and art in the four hundred years or so considered in this volume manifest a broad range of formal attributes and iconic types that cannot be reduced to a single stylistic formula that would be indicative of the age. The strategy adopted in this chapter is to define several alternative, but simultaneous stylistic movements, or processes, while at the same time drawing attention to a set of unifying themes that helped achieve artistic coherence. The interaction between stylistic processes and unifying themes may be taken as crucial to the aesthetic personality of the era.

stylistic processes

The three stylistic processes detected in the architecture and art works of Southern India in these centuries are not conceived as mutually exclusive traditions, but rather as overlapping and interacting movements. The first process looks backwards in time to past forms which were imitated and then preserved through a conscious archaism. This revivalist tendency is best appreciated in temple vimanas, the most orthodox parts of religious complexes, both ritually and artistically. The second process looks forward in time to new forms and types. This innovative tendency is most obvious in the evolution of temple mandapas and gopuras. An unmistakable spirit of improvisation dictates the third process, resulting in a remarkable stylistic synthesis and integration. Significantly, this last trend is intimately connected with the world of the king since it dominates the architecture of the palace.