Indian Sculpture and Painting, Illustrated by Typical Masterpieces, with an Explanation of their Motives and Ideals c10.141

c10.141

In the last sentence Mr. Vincent Smith shows the unconscious bias of the European archæologist. While it is perfectly true that the influence of Persian art can be seen at Ajanta, and in a great deal of the art of Northern India, it is obvious that in this case it can only be estimated at its proper value by a comparison of Ajanta paintings with Persian paintings of the same epoch, and not from the fact that a painting by Ajanta artists represents the reception of a Persian Embassy. The Ajanta school, according to archæologists, had been in existence for seven or eight hundred years before this particular painting was executed, a length of time which is surely sufficient to establish a right to be considered Indian. Professor Grünwedel's recent remarkable discoveries in the old Buddhist monasteries of Turkestan will no doubt throw light on the affinities of the art of Ajanta with that of Persia and Central Asia.