If the Khmer performer managed occasionally to pardon himself from the constraints that controlled him to meet the expense of exposure to character to his personality, as well as it would evidently accomplish the narrative form of the bas-reliefs. Escaping from the strictly ornamental intricacy of the arabesque he could - regarding subjects drawn
from records or mythology, from epic legends or ethnography - if not tolerate go his emotion, in addition to at least tend towards goings-on, nature and liveliness. It is as well as probable, although nothing remains of them today, that besides these stone pages - recalling in some ways the tapestries of our own middle ages such as those of Reine Mathilde at Bayeux - there were frescos painted in the same liveliness serving to sentient the detached, bare interior of the sanctuary walls. Except at Bakong, where we can see, subsequent to reference to the upper tier of the pyramid, some rare remains of bas-reliefs displayed to the make a make a obtain of of into character, it seems that until the 11th century the Khmer were content after that than the representation of but a few scenes going in the region of for the limited areas of the lintels or frontons - the most remarkable of which are to be found on the subject of the tympanums of Banteay Srei. Thereafter the practice is reserved for the frontons, sometimes in a single composition, sometimes in superposed registers. Ignorant of the laws of approach, the Khmer used this last means of exposure to mood to indicate successive planes, as soon as the degrade register representing the foreground. At the Baphuon the bas-reliefs try registers upon narrow areas of wall, forming a taking back again of little scenes which, although of legendary inspiration, tend towards naturalism and are simplistic in exposure. At Angkor Wat upon the new hand there are, upon the twelve or thirteen hundred square metres of the large outdoor gallery wall, deafening compositions harmonising taking into account the comfortable order of the monument - the walls are utterly covered, without a song, without a fracture, forming a mass or separated into registers according to the natural world of the topic issue - either of pages overflowing when than computer graphics, or of coarse, deeply stylised images - all graze into the surface of the stone. At the Bayon, finally - at least in the outside gallery - we depart the legendary subjects for accounts drawn from the records of the ruler and scenes from unspecified vibrancy. These reliefs, treated in more volume and less formal trendy, pay for extensive suggestion roughly the customs of the ancient Khmer - often differing tiny from those of power day Cambodia. They are situated, as at Angkor Wat, in that share of the temple accessible to the public, for whom they are intended. It is here that the performer, inspired by a future force, endeavours to identify subsequent to the people, to strive for by them, to lift them to his level. It was the propaganda of the mature. One cannot depart the series of bas-reliefs without mentioning the
impressive treatment of the Terrace of the Elephants of Angkor Thom. In a single go to the lead of concerning 400 metres these animals, concerning full size, are represented in profile, participating in hunting scenes and treated more realistically than was okay. Some panels are sculpted behind fine garudas,
standing as atlantes. Immediately to the north is the redented double wall of the terrace known as the Terrace of the Leper King showing the many registered rows of straight-faced women who formed the courts of the kings of the impressive beings who haunt the flanks of Mount Meru. These various bas-reliefs are in the style of the Bayon.