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The Stone sculptures at Mathura village of Ganjam
district are of high artistic and aesthetic value. The sculptors
usually procure the gneiss which they call in tongue "Baula
Mala Pathar" from the adjacent. Sri Maheswar Maharana aged 40
is busy at carving a Bull out of a huge block of guiness and a small
Devi idol as well, at the roadside under a thatched roof with the
slightest care to the spectators and passerby.
Another sculptor, one Sri Rama Chandra Maharana aged 30
is an architect of many such idols displayed at his poor and ravaged
thatched cottage inside the village under a shed at roadside
displaying the gruesome scenario of poverty laughing at their
artistic and creative personality languishing and shrinking day by
day.
Still then, these sculptors
have proved their artistic talent as the worthy posterities of their
celebrated forefathers the legacy of which they aspire to continue
in their offspring, as the monopoly of their family heritage.
Equally important are the plastic sculptures in masks or
different shapes, prepared by Sri Durjyadhan Behera and Mangu Behera
out of very trivial intems like waste paper, tumurine seeds, cowdung,
etc. and make them living and elegant by the touch of their brush
and colour. They are the two brothers of the entire village Huma to
become the absolute masters of this colourful plastic sculpture. Of
similar importance, a sculptor of plastic arts is one Sri Murali
Mahapatra, of Chikiti who is a master of both glptic and plastic
sculpture. His versatile artistic talents are of wider range
comprising the masks of different shapes.
The metal forms of the
plastic sculptures are encountered in Buguda and Belguntha. Sri
Adikanda Maharana at Mathura and Sri Hrukesha Maharana at Belaguntha
are exert in brass and bell-metal sculpture. Their artistic range
covers daily-use items, temple items, snakes, and utensils. One Sri
Bhaskar Maharana at Belguntha is an expert artisan in preparing
flexible fishes of different shapes and to his glory his items adorn
the markets of Malaysia, America and London.
One Bronze sculpture of Raja SriKar Bhanja, inside the
campus of Biranchi Narayan Temple at Buguda of recent origin,
presents the best artistic talent of the local sculptors.
All these glyptic and plastic sculptures taken in
totality place Ganjam at unique place in the sculptural galaxy of
the world and attract the archaeologists from different parts.
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