Indian Sculpture and Painting, Illustrated by Typical Masterpieces, with an Explanation of their Motives and Ideals c10.147

c10.147

If the Ajanta paintings are placed side by side with those of Pompeii, which are true Græco-Roman art of a period not very remote from their time, all the details to which archæologists attach so much significance will assume their proper value in relation to the whole, and I venture to say that no artist would maintain that there is in these two schools any reliable evidence of being inspired by common artistic ideas, or of being formed upon common methods of artistic expression. The Ajanta paintings, as a whole, appear to be as truthful an interpretation of Indian life and thought at the time when they were painted as the Græco-Roman paintings undoubtedly are of the life and thought of Pompeii. This must be taken as strong presumptive evidence of their artistic originality. Even assuming that Græco-Roman painters and sculptors may have sometimes been the technical teachers in Indian schools, they can no more claim on that account to have inspired Indian art than Shakespeare’s schoolmistress can be said to have inspired the tragedies of *Macbeth* and *King Lear*.