Indian Sculpture and Painting, Illustrated by Typical Masterpieces, with an Explanation of their Motives and Ideals c12.128

c12.128

In all of these paintings, though the art is entirely spontaneous and unaffected, the very Indian qualities of infinite patience and perfect self-control are strongly manifested. Patience unlimited is bestowed upon detail apparently the most insignificant which the artist thinks necessary, but everything is rigorously excluded which he thinks foreign to his purpose. There is no self-advertisement, no cheap effects to attract the applause of the ignorant, no vulgar trickery or playing to the gallery. This restraint and self-control the inartistic mind, accustomed to the loud self-assertion and aggressive realism of common modern painting, often mistakes for defective power of expression.