A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c15.s3.t2.1

c15.s3.t2.1

Very little can be recorded concerning the pictorial art of Nepāl, which, as known to us, is only a modern variety of the Tibetan school.² The extant specimens are all Buddhist, and seem to possess little aesthetic value. The Hodgson collection in Paris includes ten pictures, two of which have been reproduced by M. Sylvain Lévi in his learned work, 'Nepāl'. The first of his plates is a reduced copy of No. 6, a large pen-and-ink drawing, 2 m. 85 cm. long and 1 m. high, believed to have been prepared to the order of Mr. Brian Hodgson. The subject is a religious procession in honour of Matsyendra (*alias* Padmapāni or Avalokitesvara), marching round the walls of a town in the valley. The drawing is carefully executed and shows a knowledge of linear perspective presumably due to European teaching, but as a specimen of Indian art it is of no interest. M. Lévi's second and larger folding plate reproduces in six sections a photograph of the illustrated manuscript giving the sacred legend of Nepāl. This work, too, possesses little merit as art.