Digital Rare Book :
IDEALS OF INDIAN ART
By Ernest Binfield Havell
Formerly Principal of The Government School Of Art and Keeper of The Art Gallery, Calcutta
Published by E.P. Dutton and Company, New York - 1911

Book Extract :
In the present volume I have attempted to fill up some of the particulars, unavoidably omitted from my book on Indian Sculpture and Painting, which are necessary for the full appreciation of the Indian aesthetic standpoint.

Convinced as I am that the learning of the orientalist, however profound and scientific it may be, is often most misleading in aesthetic criticism,it has been always my first endeavor, in the interpretation of Indian ideals, to obtain a direct insight into the artist's meaning without relying on modern archaeological conclusions and without searching for the clue which may be found in Indian literature. I started with the premise that the Buddhist divine ideal, of which the great statue of Buddha at Anuradhapura is the type, was not, as archaeologists have generally assumed, a debased imitation of a Graeco-Roman model, deficient in technical achievement for lack of anatomical knowledge, but an imaginative creation, purely Indian in origin, derived from the teaching of Indian Yoga philosophy which was adopted by Mahayana Buddhism. I would maintain that no critic who begins with this archaeological pre- possession is capable of appreciating the beauty of Indian sculpture and painting, or competent to interpret the intentions of Indian artists.

In the present work I bring forward evidence from Indian literature which entirely justifies my conclusions and explains more fully the origin of the Buddhist and Jain divine ideal and its derivation from the old Aryan heroic ideal as described in Indian epic poetry. The light which the Mahabharata throws on this point is important, for it shows the affinity of Indian aesthetic ideals with Egyptian, Cretan, and pre-Pheidian Hellenic art, a matter of the deepest interest to students of archaeology.

I have also endeavoured to indicate the inspiration of Vedic thought, which still permeates the whole atmosphere of Indian life, as the originating impulse of Indian art and the influence which links together all its different historic phases,not excepting the Mogul period ; but I differ entirely from the European critic whose usual attitude is to point to the Vedic and early Buddhist period as containing all that is pure and spiritual in Indian thought, and to explain the succeeding Buddhist-Hindu epoch, until the advent of Islam, as a gradual relapse into superstition and barbarism. This error is, I think, largely due to ignorance or misapprehension of Hindu artistic ideals, which also leads Western critics to disregard the paramount importance of Indian idealism, not only in Mogul art, but in the great schools of China and Japan.

I am aware that in some cases the interpretation I have given to Hindu symbolism may seem to lack the authority of Sanskrit texts ; but art and literature do not always follow parallel lines, and the archaeologists who have sought to interpret Indian art only by literary knowledge have often gone woefully astray. Anglo-India needs more art in its archaeology and less archaeology in its art.

Though in my excursions into the new world of art which India has revealed to me I have acquired an intense admiration for the great monuments of the past, my interest in Indian art is not of an academic or archaeological kind. It is centred in the fact that Indian art is still a living thing with vast potentialities, of such unique value to India and all the world that it should be regarded as a great national trust which Great Britain is bound in honour and duty to guard and maintain. If to the orthodox critic my enthusiasm may seem to be excessive, I have the satisfaction of knowing that it is shared by a goodly company of my fellow artists ; and the fault, if fault there be, is a venial one. Art does not die of overpraise ; it cannot live or thrive in an atmosphere of contempt and depreciation. The half-hearted admirers of Indian art are those who do it most injury.

It is not a small matter, either for this country or for India, that Indian artistic ideals are so misunderstood and misinterpreted. For if a great national art affords a revelation of national thought and character more intimate, more complete and universal, than history, poetry, or romance can give us, the misapprehension or depreciation of its ideals by an alien governing race must inevitably sow intellectual antipathies, not less dangerous because they are often unconscious ones, which aggravate racial prejudices, create obstacles to that intimate social relationship without which a perfect understanding between different races is impossible, and are detrimental to good administration, especially in the vital problems of education. The mistakes engendered by such misunderstanding should be evident enough in the injury which has been done to Indian art, even in the efforts which have been made to assist it.

It would be regarded as silly and inconsequent if a critic were to complain of the sculptors of the Sphinx that they knew not how to draw or model cats and dogs. Western methods of art-teaching in India, based on the assumption that Indian artists have been always ignorant of anatomy and perspective, are not less irrelevant and uninformed.

The nation which governs India should not allow its state museums to lend themselves to the depreciation of Indian art in all its higher aspects. I am convinced that, with the spread of better knowledge, the whole consensus of artistic opinion in Europe will condemn such statements as those which appear in the official handbook to the Indian section of the Victoria and Albert Museum; which reveal, also, the guiding principle in the whole past administration of it :

"The monstrous shapes of the Puranic deities are unsuitable for the higher forms of artistic representation ; and this is possibly why sculpture and painting are unknown, as fine arts, in India. . . . Nowhere does their figure-sculpture show the inspiration of true art. They seem to have'no feeling for it. . . . How completely their figure-sculpture fails in true art is seen at once when they attempt to produce it on a natural or heroic scale ; and it is only because their ivory and stone figures of men and animals are on so minute a scale that they excite admiration."

It is easy to understand, when such ideas are given authoritative official sanction in the state collections which are designed for public enlightenment, why many sound English art-critics are full of similar prejudices, and why Indian art is generally better appreciated on the Continent than it is in this country. I hope that the selection of some of the finest examples of Indian sculpture which I have made to illustrate this book, together with those given in the previous one on the same subject, will go far to correct the false impression of Indian art which all our national collections create, and indicate the direction in which the latter may be improved.

But as the best illustrations are always poor substitutes for the originals, I hope also that they will inspire more art-students, Indian as well as European, to go and seek the truth for themselves in the places where Indian art can be properly appreciated. They will then realise fully what a mangled and distorted version of it has hitherto been presented to the Western art-world.


It is difficult to argue with those who are so steeped in Western academic prejudices as to treat all Hindu art as puerile and detestable because it has chosen the most simple and obvious forms of symbolism, such as a third eye to denote spiritual consciousness — where the classical scholar would expect a Greek nymph, or a Roman Sybil, with an explanatory label — a multiplicity of arms to denote the universal attributes of divinity, and a lion-like body in gods and heroes to express spiritual and physical strength. Such critics seem not to appreciate the fact that Hindu art was not addressed, like modern Western art, to a narrow coterie of literati for their pleasure and distraction. Its intention was to make the central ideas of Hindu religion and philosophy intelligible to all Hinduism,to satisfy the unlettered but not unlearned Hindu peasant as well as the intellectual Brahmin. It does not come within the province of a critic to dictate to the artist what symbols he may or may not employ — to tell him that it is true art to use x, y, and 2 in his aesthetic notation, but not a, b, and c ; or vice versa.

In all great national art the artist invariably prefers the symbols which make the most universal appeal — those which are best understood by the people he addresses. He can only be rightly condemned if in the application of them he should offend against the universal laws of aesthetic design and rhythm. Hindu symbolism is justified because it speaks straight to the heart of Hinduism and because it is used with consummate artistic knowledge and skill.