1 76 v - A. Smiih—Ghceeo-Boman influence [No. 3, 



the truthful rendering of a story than to a beautiful rendering of it :— 

 not that they discarded beauty, but they did not make it the primary 

 motive of representation."* 



The range of date of the Ajanta paintings is very nearly the same 

 as that of the Gandhara sculptures, though some of the former are 

 earlier, and some may be a hundred years, or even more, later than any 

 of the latter. The earliest paintings at Ajanta, those on the side walls of 

 Cave No. X, are referred by Mr. Burgess to the latter part of the second 

 century A. D. To a large extent the Gandhara and Ajanta works are 

 certainly contemporary, and it is primd facie probable that, if the sculp- 

 tures echo the ideas of the art of imperial Rome, paintings of the same 

 period should not have escaped the influence of the cosmopolitan canons 

 of taste which then determined the forms of art. I am not prepared to 

 prove in detail the Greek or Roman parentage of the Ajanta paintings, 

 but I have little doubt that critical study will prove them to be more 

 Roman than Greek. Their realism, on which Mr. Griffiths comments, 

 is one of the most characteristic features of the Gandhara sculptures, 

 and 1S thoroughly Roman. Some of the panels, too, filled with elegant 

 floral decorations are extremely like Roman work in appearance. 



The Gandhara sculptures are so closely related to the Christian 

 sculptures in the Catacombs of Rome, that I venture to suggest that 

 it would be worth while to compare the paintings in the Catacombs 

 with those in the Ajanta caves. A hasty comparison of copies of both 

 led me to suppose that they might be related, but I am not in a position 

 to offer a definite opinion on the subject. 



The neglect of years has, it is understood, in great part destroyed 

 the original paintings at Ajanta, and, unfortunately, the fine copies' in 

 oils, on which Major Gill spent many years, were mostly consumed by 

 the fire at the Crystal Palace in 18(30. A few of his copies then escaped, 

 but, I believe, perished in a later fire at South Kensington. Mr. Griffiths, 

 of the Bombay School of Art, has since made a fresh set of copies 

 of a portion of the paintings, and these copies are now exhibited in 

 the Indian Museum at South Kensington. The ordinary visitor, how 

 ever, can be little impressed by them, in the absence of descriptive 

 labels or catalogue to indicate the history, meaning, or artistic value of the 

 paintings. I should add that, notwithstanding his remarks on the subor- 

 dinate place given to beauty as compared with realism in the Ajanta paint- 

 ings generally, Mr. Griffiths bestows very high praise on particular compo- 

 sitions, and his judgment is supported by the great authority of Mr. 



* Indian Anti^ary, Vol. IIT, pp. 25-28. So far as I am aware, Mr. Griffiths' 

 .-.•port has not boon published in fall. Considerable extracts Iron, it are given in the 

 Indian Antiquary, and in Mr. Burgess' Notes. 



