A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c17.60

c17.60

The same plate offers further illustrations of the Indian aptitude for artistic representation of plant-life, which certainly was not learned from the Greeks, who could not teach the lesson. Sir George Watt points out to me that the pinnate foliage motives are distinctively Indian. If space permitted many excellent illustrations might be given, but one from Mathurā must suffice (Plate XC, Fig. B). The lotus—that is to say, the indigenous lotus of India—and various other aquatic plants are constantly treated with exquisite skill, sometimes naturalistically and sometimes more conventionally. Indian sculpture and painting offer numberless examples. In this place one illustration from Mathurā and another from Gandhāra may be offered (Plate XC, Figs. C, D). The lotus plant symbolizes human life springing from the ocean of eternity.