A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c20.s1.105

c20.s1.105

Europeans are now so accustomed to expect in painting solid effects, with the play of light and shade, and aerial perspective, that they are tempted to welcome as obvious improvements the partial adoption of Renaissance methods by Indian artists, which render the modified product more easily intelligible and consonant with European taste. But stricter criticism hesitates to applaud attempts to reconcile incompatible ideals, even when most skilfully executed, and decides that it is better for the Asiatic to go his own way. An exception may be admitted in favour of the strictly limited line-shading introduced into some of the later Indian works. The Indian paintings, in so far as they conform to Asiatic principles, always remain coloured drawings, no matter how gorgeous may be the pigments, or how elaborate the detail. When the artist starts, as he invariably does, by drawing a firm clear-cut outline, nothing can change a composition so begun into a picture in the modern European sense. No European artist now living is capable, I imagine, of rivalling in certain respects the mastery over line displayed by the best Asiatics, nor is any Asiatic artist qualified to compete with the great Renaissance painters or their successors. Each at his best is unsurpassed and perfect in his way, and it is better for each 'cobbler to stick to his last'.