174 "V. A. 8m\tii—GrcFco-Roman influence [No. 3, 



Such being the deficiencies of Indian sculpture, the same may be 

 looked for iu Indian painting. 



The sculptures of Gandhara, Amaravati, and the Western Caves 

 frequently show traces of paint, from which it appears that the Indians 

 adopted the common Greek practico of using colour to heighten the 

 effect of sculpture. No Indian coloured sculpture, howover, has suffi- 

 ciently retained the pigment to allow modern critics to judge of the 

 effect produced. In Gandhara the gilder's art was freely employed, 

 in addition to that of the painter, in order to add to the magnificence 

 of sculpture. Such extraneous aids, whether employed by Greeks or 

 Indiana, seem to our modern taste derogatory rather than helpful to 

 the dignity of sculpture, and, this being so, we need not regret the loss 

 of the pigment and gilding, which would in our eyes have vulgarized 

 sculpturos, which we can honestly admire as they stand in naked "stone. 



But, besides these questionable expedients, the artists of ancient 

 India knew how to supplement sculpture by the art of painting in foi-rns 

 recognized by all to be legitimate. Mr. Fergusson expresses the con- 

 fident belief that paintings, such as are commonly called frescoes, con- 

 tributed to the decoration of the Gandhara monasteries. It is very 

 probable that his belief was well founded, but no scrap of any such 

 painting has yet been found, and at present a Gandhara school of paint- 

 ing has only a hypothetical existence. 



In Western India the destroying hand of time has been a little 

 more merciful, and has spared enough of the ancient paintings to show 

 that during the first five centuries of the Christian era India possessed 

 artists who could paint pictures of, at least, respectable merit. 



Fragments of paintings on walls and ceilings can be detected in tho 

 cave temples of the Bombay Presidency at several sites, but the only 

 localities where intelligible pictures have survived, so far as is known 

 at present, are Ajanta in the Nizam's dominions and Bagh in the district 

 of Rath in the south of Malwa. The paintings at the latter place aro 

 known only from brief descriptions in Messrs. Fergusson and Burgess' 

 works, which are not sufficient to form the basis for critical dis- 

 cussion.* 



Our knowledge of ancient Indian painting is practically restricted 

 to the pictures on the walls and ceilings of the celebrated caves at Ajanta. 

 No attempt has yet been made to discuss methodically these interesting 



* Cave Temples of India, pp. 363-366; and Notes on Bauddha Rock Temples of 

 Ajant4, pp. 94, 95. Recently a series of remarkable Jain paintings has been dis- 

 covered at Tirnmalai, 30 miles south of Tellore in the Madras Presidency. Tho 

 paintings belong to two distinct periods, but their dates have not yet been dotor- 

 mined. (Proc. Govt, of Madras, No. 803, Public, dated llfft June, 1887.) 



