Studio: international art (89.1925)

MODERN INDIAN ART AT
WEMBLEY a 0 0 0

WHILE trade commissioners and in-
dustrial organisers are busy calcu-
lating the figures of raw and manufactured
products sold at Wembley at the various
Indian stalls, the economist of cultural
values may be excused if he is inclined to
tarry on the contribution which India has
made to the art of the Empire. The other
countries overseas who came to Wembley,
came with products which were more or
less echoes of the parent England: their
art was linked by tradition, as by race-
consciousness, to that of Old England.
India stood on a different footing. The
minarets and the domes of her pavilion
symbolised a culture and a civilisation
fundamentally different from that of Eng-
land herself. India came to tell her own
story—in the character of her produce,
her manufactures, and, above all, in her art.

The retrospective exhibition organised by
the Trustees of the British Museum and
by private collectors of old Indian pictures,
revealed her contribution to pictorial art
in the past, and the Indian section in the
Fine Art Court set forth her present
achievements. 0 0 a a a
One of the most significant movements
which English education has set on foot
in India is the gesture for a real re-
habilitation of Indian cultural ideals. In
the realm of art this has expressed itself
in an awakening race-consciousness which
has given to the old art of India a new
orientation. The story of the birth of a
new school of painting under the leader-
ship of Dr. Abanindra Nath Tagore, now
lecturer on art at the Calcutta University,
has been told by Mr. Havell to the readers
of The Studio. The promise that the
New School made at the beginning has
been fulfilled in very interesting develop-
ments. Abanindra Nath Tagore does not