Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c39.4

c39.4

These artistic instincts were certainly stimulated by—if not actually derived from—the reactions of a receptive people to the exquisite natural scenery by which they were surrounded, and in the beauties of which their lives have been for ever steeped. Those who have been fortunate enough to dwell for any length of time in the valley of Kashmir can appreciate these conditions, which are not only produced by the superb formation of the country, of lake and river, meadow and forest, mountain and snow-clad peak, but by the atmospheric and other phenomena acting on such an enchanting environment, by its cloud and sunshine, its light and shade, its dawns and sunsets, its changes of season, its pageantry of colour and all those moving effects which nature so artistically stages with never-failing harmony. It can only be these that have given the inhabitants of this country that acute aesthetic understanding that has enabled them to design and create works of art of such a distinctive character. And combined with this natural gift is that of assimilation, that power to select extraneous elements and to absorb them so skilfully that they become an integral part of their own conceptions