A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c14.s2.95

c14.s2.95

‘In spite,’ he writes, ‘of its obvious limitations, I find the work so accomplished in execution, so consistent in convention, so vivacious and varied in design, and full of such evident delight in beautiful form and colour, that I cannot help ranking it with some of the early art which the world has agreed to praise in Italy.... The Ajaṇṭā workmanship is admirable; long subtle curves are drawn with great precision in a line of unvarying thickness with one sweep of the brush; the touch is often bold and vigorous, the handling broad, and in some cases the *impasto* is as solid as in the best Pompeian work.... The draperies, too, are thoroughly understood, and though the folds may be somewhat conventionally drawn, they express most thoroughly the peculiarities of the Oriental treatment of unsewn cloth.... For the purposes of arteducation no better examples could be placed before an Indian art-student than those to be found in the caves of Ajaṇṭā. Here we have art with life in it, human faces full of expression, limbs drawn with grace and action, flowers which bloom, birds which soar, and beasts that spring, or fight, or patiently carry burdens; all are taken from Nature's book—growing after her pattern, and in this respect differing entirely from Muhammadan art, which is unreal, unnatural, and therefore incapable of development.'¹