International studio (18.1902/1903)

/72<3?3<372 /%*/??/<3/ //

historical, and arch<eologicai interest, has attracted
so little attention from European This
is the more unfortunate because the destructive
agencies which are always at work in India are
continually narrowing the possibilities of investiga-
tion. In India itself
the very existence of
an indigenous school
of hne art is hardly
recognised, but appre-
ciation of the unique
artistic resources of the
empire has never been
a prominent virtue
either of the Anglo-
Indian administration
or of Indian patrons
of art. The earliest of
the existing examples
of Indian pictorial art
are the well - known
fresco paintings in the
Buddhist cave-temples
at Ajunta, in the Bom-
bay Presidency, which
date from the sixth
century. Though they
are the only extant ex-
amples of this period,
they are sufhcient to
show that the Indian
painter, when emanci-
pated from the restraint
imposed by the rigid
formalism of Hindu
artistic canons and
from the restrictions oi Mahomedan bigotry, can
interpret and enjoy to the full the inhnite poetical
suggestions of Indian life and Indian nature.
The painting of that period, besides being
strongly impressed by the humanising influence
of the teachings of Gautama, was greatly affected
by the artistic traditions of Greece, intro-
duced by the followers of Alexander's army
who settled in Northern India. When there
came the great religious revulsion which re-
stored the power of Hinduism throughout the
greater part of India, some of the Buddhist monks
who fled through the passes of the Himalayas into
Tibet and China brought their religion and their
art into Japan. This is the explanation of the
existence at the present day in some of the oldest
temples of Japan of paintings, treasured as the
most precious relics and rarely shown to Europeans,
26

which closely resemble the Grteco-Buddhist art
of India.
So the school of Ajunta carried its nature-
loving traditions into the congenial atmosphere
of far-off Japan, among a people whose artistic
sympathies were en-
tirely in the same direc-
tion. With the almost
total annihilation of the
Buddhist religion this
remarkable school of
painting became ex-
tinct in India. In the
Hindu caste system the
profession of a painter
ranks among the lowest
of all the artistic crafts.
For temple decoration
the Brahmin priesthood
always preferred the art
of the sculptor. The
scruples which kept the
low-caste painters out
of the temples also
prevented their em-
ployment in embellish-
ing the sacred writings
of the Hindus; so
after the disappearance
of the Buddhists there
is an interval of about
nine centuries before
painting as a hne art
took root again in
India. The Moguls
re-introduced fresco
painting, and brought with them Persian artists
to illuminate and illustrate their historical
writings, their classic literature, and their sacred
manuscripts. Down to the time of Akbar the
Great, or about the middle of the sixteenth
century, the works of these Persian painters fol-
lowed entirely the traditions of pure Persian art,
and bore little trace of their Indian environment.
Saracenic art, which was established in Northern
India, was very largely inHuenced by the strict
letter of the Mahomedan precept, which forbade
the artistic representation of nearly all living crea-
tures, including humanity. Akbar, who took charge
of the spiritual as well as the temporal welfare of
his subjects, perceived with his keen artistic instinct
how such a restriction fettered all higher artistic
inspiration, and promptly swept the restriction
away. With the whole wide held of Nature thus


"tN THE ZENANA" liY ABANINDRO NATH TAGORE