Indian Sculpture and Painting, Illustrated by Typical Masterpieces, with an Explanation of their Motives and Ideals c7.43

c7.43

It might have been supposed that the restoration of law and order under British rule, would have revived conditions at least favourable to the material prosperity of the fine arts. But the interests of England in India at that time were purely commercial, and Europe was too convinced of the intellectual inferiority of oriental races to take much interest in anything Indian which was not a marketable commodity. The affectation of classic taste, which at the close of the eighteenth century was much stronger among cultured Englishmen than it is now, could not recognise art except in a mask borrowed from Greek or Roman antiquity.