Mediaeval Sinhalese Art c3.9

c3.9

In Ceylon, as in India, the direct and indirect influence of contact with the West has been fatal to the arts. The two most direct causes of this adverse influence have been the destruction of the organization of state-craftsmen, following upon the British occupation; and the subsequent systematic neglect, by British and Sinhalese alike, of a local architectural tradition. A less direct, but equally sure and certain, cause of the decline of the arts has been the growth of commercialism,—that system of production under which the work of European machines and machine-like men has in the East driven the village weaver from his loom,* the craftsman from his tools, the ploughman from his songs, and has divorced art from labour. In the words of Blake,