Indian Sculpture and Painting, Illustrated by Typical Masterpieces, with an Explanation of their Motives and Ideals c7.39

c7.39

INDIAN art, moreover, has been for two and a half centuries under a political, social, and intellectual ban unparalleled in history. What would be the state of the fine arts in Europe at the present day, if, several centuries ago, an autocratic ruler had closed all the art-galleries, museums, academies, and schools of art which might have existed, ordered all pictures to be burnt and sculpture to be broken, and proscribed the profession of an artist as irreligious; if then, after a period of general anarchy, during which all national art-traditions had been nearly obliterated, a committee of the American Senate, or of graduates of the Calcutta University, were placed in authority and constituted by public opinion as the chief arbiters of artistic taste and fashion?