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| Dr (Miss) Sharad Singh Author and Historian |
Gargoyles : scary but beautiful too
- Dr
Sharad Singh
In
architecture, a gargoyle is a carved or formed grotesque with a spout designed
to convey water from a roof and away from the side of a building, thereby
preventing rainwater from running down masonry walls and eroding the mortar
between.
Sheila Kumar, writer,
manuscript editor and author
says in her article 'Mystique of the misshapen' that – "Gargoyles are
traditionally thought to have been created during the Medieval period but
examples date back to some ancient civilisations as well. They have been found
on the roofs of Egyptian temples where their mouths served, of course, as a
spout for water. Greek temples had their own version of gargs, often lions and
other ferocious animals. The temple of Zeus originally had 102 lion-headed
gargoyles or spouts, 39 of which remain. Europe, of course, is gargoyle heaven;
they dot buildings in Toledo in Spain, Trondheim in Norway, Hillerod in
Denmark, Vienna in Austria, Brugge and Mechelen in Belgium, Cologne in Germany,
Zagreb in Croatia, and across the Netherlands and Portugal. Strangely, they are
found also in Quito in Ecuador, the Forbidden City of Beijing, Ottawa in
Canada, and Sydney in Australia. Closer home, a Shiva temple just outside
Kollengode in Kerala and the temples of Uttarakhand come to mind, though these
Indian spouts resemble your regular lion, horse and elephant. The gargs on
newly-built structures usually have the mask of a raakshas or demon.
Virtually all the old Gothic churches in
France sport gargs of varying monstrous proportions. The ones atop the Notre
Dame in Paris have been a tourist attraction for ages, while the U.K. has its
fair share atop the ancient academic buildings of Oxford, in Manchester, at
Westminster Cathedral, at Winchester Cathedral, and in Cheshire,
Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Wales, Ireland and in the many abbeys of
Scotland."
But I found a big difference between
western and Indian gargoyles that Indian gargoyles have rich and soft aesthetic
elements by the sculpture, while western gargoyles have scary and hard elements
in aestheticaly aproch. Everyone can see these differences by the photographic examples
given belowe-
Western gargoyles
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| Western Gargoyle |
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| Western Gargoyle |
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| Western Gargoyle |
Indian gargoyles
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| Indian Gargoyle |
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| Indian Gargoyle |
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| Indian Gargoyle |
