1889.] on the Civilization of Ancient India. 173 



Section VI. The Indian Schools of Painting. 

 Tho mention of an Indian school of painting must seem absurd to 

 a reader acquainted only with modem India, where no traco of tho 

 existence of pictorial art can be discerned, unless the pretty, though 

 conventional, miniatures which a few craftsmen at Delhi are still able 

 to execute, be counted as an exception. 



The paintings exhibited in the show rooms of Rajas' palaces, and 

 tho decorations of modern temples and private houses are scarcely more 

 deserving of tho name of art than the caricatures scribbled by boys on 

 the wall of their schoolroom. In the India of to-day painting and 

 sculpture are both lost arts. The little feeling for beauty that sur- 

 vives is almost eon fined to small bodies of skilled artizans, and is with 

 them rather the inherited aptitude of the members of a guild for the 

 work of their trade, than a genuine artistic taste. This statement may 

 seem very shocking to the amiable gentlemen who, of late years, have 

 bestowed unmeasured praise upon tho assthetic merits of Indian carpets, 

 shawls, vases, and so forth, but 'tis truo 'tis pity, and pity 'tis 'tis true. 



My concern, however, is with tho past rather than tho present, and 

 I must! not tilt against South Kensington windmills. Whatever be the 

 merits of modern productions, ancient India certainly produced paint- 

 ings whirh deserve to be ranked as works of art. They do not, I 

 believe, deserve a vorv high rank, when compared with the world's 

 masterpieces-no Indian art work docs-bnt they are entitled to a re- 

 spectable place among the second or third class. The utter inability 

 Of the modern Hindu to express anything human or divine with either 

 brush or chisel produces in the mind of the European observer in India 

 a feeling of surprise when ho finds a sculpture or painting which can 

 he described as tho work of an artist, and admits of comparison with 

 the productions of Europe, and inclines him to exaggerate the merit 

 of his treasure trove. The Gdudhara or Peshawar sculptures, wlueh 

 have formed the principal subject of this paper, would be admitted by 

 most persons competent to form an opinion, to be the best specimens of 

 the plastic art ever known to exist in India. Yet even these are only 

 echoes of the second rate Roman art of tho third and fourth centuries. 

 In the elaboration of minute, intricate, and often extremely pretty, 

 ornamentation on stone, it is true, tho Indian artists are second to none. 

 The sione-eutfers in Gandhara and at Amaravati display tho same skill 

 in drawing elaborate patterns, and tho same skill in executing them, 

 which we now admire in the work of tho modern carpet-weavers and 

 vase-makers. But in the expression of human passions and emotions 

 India,! art has completely failed, except during the time when it was 

 held in Greeco-Roman leading strings, and it has scarcely at any time 

 essayed an attempt to give visible form .to any divine ideal. 



