Mediaeval Sinhalese Art c32.10

c32.10

∗ J. E. Harrison, in the ‘Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion,’ Ch. I., etc. † A. K. Coomaraswamy, ‘The Aims of Indian Art,’ Campden, 1908. ‡ ‘Imperial Gazetteer of India,’ 1908, II., 121. How completely it is possible for the archæologist to misunderstand the true significance of Indian art is indicated in the two sentences which immediately follow that quoted in the text—“The figures both of men and animals become stiff and formal, perception of the facts of nature almost disappears, and the idea of power is clumsily expressed by the multiplication of members. The many-headed, many-armed gods and goddesses whose images crowd the walls and roofs of mediæval temples have no pretensions to beauty, and are frequently hideous and grotesque.” Such sentences show that the greatest archæological knowledge is no guarantee of any comprehension of the true problem of Indian art—the study of the development of the Indian ideal, and its emancipation from the fetters of borrowed art-formulas little adapted to its expression. Until artists and archæologists together have attacked this problem with the patient care hitherto devoted to the study of the Classic influence at an earlier period, it cannot be pretended that the study of truly Indian art has been seriously undertaken.