ABSTRACT
Among a temple's physical features, a Hindu might consider to be of special importance those which express its main symbolic meanings: the plan, the elevation and the images of the gods. Indian artists depicting temples tend to emphasise these features and even contrive to represent them all at once (Fig. 2). The Daniells emphasised none of them: the deity and the plan are not shown at all, and the elevation is obscured by foliage and the oblique perspective. These devices were employed to integrate the building into the scenery, in accordance with English artistic norms. This does not mean that Indian pictures are more objective or any less suffused by an aesthetic, but rather that their aesthetic is more in harmony with that of the subject. By overriding the intrinsic aesthetic with a different and alien one, the Daniells' interpretation of the temple misrepresents it.
