Mediaeval Sinhalese Art c22.115

c22.115

*Royal* The king took great delight in cunning workmanship. We may picture him going about *patronage* the Four Workshops and keenly criticising all that was going forward there, just as Akbar the Great and other Eastern rulers have ever been wont to do. This royal interest in art and craft must not be regarded as the mere amusement of an idle monarch; the proper comprehension of such matters belonged to ideal of kingly state. The destruction of the state patronage of craft which followed upon the British occupation, struck one of the many *Metal work* blows at the national culture, which have so impoverished the outlook of the Sinhalese people during the last hundred years, inflicting injury which it will take a great deal of ‘compulsory education’ to cure.