Mediaeval Sinhalese Art c32.8

c32.8

The question, however, depends essentially upon religious and philosophical considerations. The philosophies of Greek and Indian Art are poles apart. Putting aside a few rare and beautiful fragments of archaic art, the Greek representations of the gods belong entirely to the Olympian aspect of Greek religion*; Greek art, as has been said, has in it no touch of mysticism. The gods are but grand and beautiful men; sometimes, as in the case of many Apollos, it is uncertain even whether the representation is of a god or an athlete. Indian art is essentially transcendental.† Indian art is concerned not with the representation of perfect men, but with the intimation of Divinity. Its greatest manifestations have, though perhaps not always so conspicuously as in Egyptian art, that sense of ‘Being beyond Appearance,’ which we miss in the Greek representations of beautiful Olympians. Without saying that this or the other aim of art is the greatest, it is obvious to those acquainted with both, that the genius of Greek, and the genius of Indian art, are so different that it is difficult, and even impossible, to imagine a dependence of the one upon the other. Beside the recognition of this fact, the question of just how far Classic influence can be traced in the outward detail of Indian art, becomes of little moment.