Indian Sculpture and Painting, Illustrated by Typical Masterpieces, with an Explanation of their Motives and Ideals c9.70

c9.70

But it can hardly be doubted that had these Bôrôbudûr sculptures only been labelled "Greek," "Roman," or "Italian," the volumes of criticism and commentaries upon them would have filled many libraries; casts of them would be found in every European art-school and museum; tourists would have flocked to inscribe their names upon them or chip off fragments as souvenirs; art-dealers and American millionaires would have jostled one another in their eagerness to possess them. But as they are only Indo-Javanese and memorials of Asiatic culture, they are as works of art totally unappreciated, though well known to oriental archæologists; and Bôrôbudûr remains an obscure and neglected ruin, the name of which is hardly mentioned either in Europe or in Asia. I believe there does not even yet exist a complete photographic record of the sculptures, the series taken by Mr. Van Kinsbergen in 1872, of which only six sets were printed and buried in the libraries of six learned societies, representing only a small part of them.