A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c13.s2.1

c13.s2.1

The plastic art of both Tibet and Nepāl is Indian in origin and essentially one. According to Tāranāth the style of the ancient Nepalese school was based on that of the 'Eastern Painters in Bengal', who may be assigned to the eighth century. Nothing at all so old seems to be now in existence. No example of either Tibetan or Nepalese artistic sculpture in stone has come to my notice. The plastic art of both countries is represented by images mostly of copper or bronze, small in size and comparatively recent in date, none, perhaps, being more than three or four centuries old. The better examples seem to come chiefly from Tibet, but the labels in collections are not always very precise. Indian civilization having reached the valley of Nepāl many centuries before it penetrated the plateau of Tibet, the presumption is that the almost complete identity of style in the two countries must be the result of Tibetan copying of Nepalese models.