Mediaeval Sinhalese Art c3.2

c3.2

The period dealt with I have called Mediæval; but it must be understood that changes of style in decorative art take place comparatively slowly, and that it is generally impossible to say at a glance whether a given piece of work be of the sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth century, or even older or later. Most of the specimens here figured or described date from the latter part of the eighteenth century. Mediæval conditions survived in full force until the British occupation of Kandy in 1815, and what is actually described in this book is the work of Sinhalese craftsmen under mediæval conditions, mainly as these survived in the eighteenth century, and, in a less degree, even to the present day.