Studio: international art (27.1903)

Indian Pictorial Art

historical, and archaeological interest, has attracted which closely resemble the Graaco-Buddhist art

so little attention from European savants. This of India.

is the more unfortunate because the destructive So the school of Ajunta carried its nature-
agencies which are always at work in India are loving traditions into the congenial atmosphere
continually narrowing the possibilities of investiga- of far-off Japan, among a people whose artistic
tion. In India itself sympathies were en-
the very existence of tirely in the same direc-
an indigenous school tion. With the almost

artistic resources of the oJOl* painting became ex-
empire has never been hhbhf :j§EaHMM&^' - - MB tinct in India. In the

a prominent virtue Hindu caste system the

Indian administration ■■ ranks among the lowest

or of Indian patrons of all the artistic crafts,

of art. The earliest of For temple decoration

the existing examples the Brahmin priesthood

pated from the restraint painting as a fine art

imposed by the rigid " in the zenana" by abanindro nath tagore took root again [n

formalism of Hindu India. The Moguls

artistic canons and re-introduced fresco

from the restrictions of Mahomedan bigotry, can painting, and brought with them Persian artists

interpret and enjoy to the full the infinite poetical to illuminate and illustrate their historical

suggestions of Indian life and Indian nature. writings, their classic literature, and their sacred

The painting of that period, besides being manuscripts. Down to the time of Akbar the

strongly impressed by the humanising influence Great, or about the middle of the sixteenth

of the teachings of Gautama, was greatly affected century, the works of these Persian painters fol-

by the artistic traditions of Greece, intro- lowed entirely the traditions of pure Persian art,

duced by the followers of Alexander's army and bore little trace of their Indian environment,

who settled in Northern India. When there Saracenic art, which was established in Northern

came the great religious revulsion which re- India, was very largely influenced by the strict

stored the power of Hinduism throughout the letter of the Mahomedan precept, which forbade

greater part of India, some of the Buddhist monks the artistic representation of nearly all living crea-

who fled through the passes of the Himalayas into tures, including humanity. Akbar, who took charge

Tibet and China brought their religion and their of the spiritual as well as the temporal welfare of

art into Japan. This is the explanation of the his subjects, perceived with his keen artistic instinct

existence at the present day in some of the oldest how such a restriction fettered all higher artistic

temples of Japan of paintings, treasured as the inspiration, and promptly swept the restriction

most precious relics and rarely shown to Europeans, away. With the whole wide field of Nature thus
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