A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c7.19

c7.19

Not many years have elapsed since Europe began to ‘suspect any merit’ in Japanese art. Now, the stage of ‘gratifying discoveries’ in that domain has been reached, while the equally strange arts of China and Persia have begun to receive their share of recognition. ‘The European mind,’ to quote Mr. Fry again, has been ‘gradually prepared to accept the methods of Oriental design, and with that preparation has come an immense increase in its accessibility.’ Numerous exhibitions and the discourses of many recent critics, English and foreign, have established firmly the claims of Japanese, Chinese, and Persian art to serious consideration on its aesthetic merits, and not merely as raw material for the lucubrations of the ‘scholar and archaeologist’.