Indian Sculpture and Painting, Illustrated by Typical Masterpieces, with an Explanation of their Motives and Ideals c7.143

c7.143

Professor Grünwedel, Dr. Burgess, and many other orientalists have with profound learning and research catalogued the instances of Gandharan forms and types which abound in later Indian art. But the origin of artistic ideals cannot be determined by the collection of archæological statistics, without correlating them with the intellectual and spiritual impulses which created the art to which they belong. The mere survival of these forms and types does not prove that Indian artists derived any inspiration from Gandhara. Naturalists may point out striking physiological resemblances between man and chimpanzee, but will hardly convince us that all our spiritual development is due to a simian ancestry. The perfected ideal of Indian art is as far in advance of the Gandharan type as the art of the Parthenon surpasses the art of Gandhara. Neither artistically nor technically is it possible to place the best Gandharan sculptures in the same plane with that of Bôrôbudûr, Elephanta, or Ellora, or even with the best modern Nepalese metal-work, such as the Buddha in Plate VI.