Jain Miniature Paintings from Western India c8.2

c8.2

BEFORE beginning the review of the technical processes involved in Western Indian painting, it may be worth while to consider what we should have to contemplate, if we were to attempt a survey of the technique involved in medieval art. To investigate works in metal, such as pots and pans and immense number of bronzes, Jain, Buddhist and Hindu, we will have to revert to the operations of metallurgy, the extraction of metals from their ores, refining, parting, alloying and their conversion into works of art by the various processes of casting, die-stamping, carving, turning, beating, gilding, painting, etc. The lapidary's art cannot be ignored when we want to study exquisite medieval ornaments, set with precious, semi-precious or artificial stones. We are prone to ask how they were cut, polished, carved, engraved, coloured, backed and mounted. We shall have to look up the actual examples of woodcarving to know how they were carved, gilded or lacquered. If we want to study the medieval textile pieces from Gujarāt, early samples of which have been recovered from the sands of Fustāt in Egypt, we shall have to devote a chapter to the technique of weaving and spinning, dyeing, cleaning, bleaching, blocking, printing and painting. And, above all, along with the study of materials and the instruments of medieval craftsmanship, we should be constrained to reflect upon the manner in which they were employed, "for technique means action, materials and tools in action, and the essence of technical study is the recognition of those systematic methods which combine taste and knowledge and competence, born of profession and individual experience."¹