A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c9.s1.11

c9.s1.11

The art of the times dealt with in this chapter is characterized by frank naturalism. It is thoroughly human, a mirror of the social and religious life of ancient India, apparently a much pleasanter and merrier life than that of the India of later ages when the Brahmans had reasserted their superiority and imposed their ideas upon art and upon every branch of Hindu civilization. The early sculptures, while full of the creatures of gay fancy, are free from the gloom and horror of the conceptions of the mediaeval artists. The Buddhism with which nearly all of them are concerned was, as already observed in the Introduction, the popular creed of men and women living a natural life in the world, seeking happiness, and able to enjoy themselves. The recent critics of the 'nationalist' school, in their anxiety to secure adequate recognition for the merits of the mediaeval Brahmanical art, sometimes appear to believe that it alone truly expresses Indian thought. It is well to remember that for several centuries Indian thought was content to find its artistic utterance in a fashion much more human and cheerful.