The Indians are distinguished by a keen observation of nature, and, so far as the conventional treatment of flowers, fruits, creepers, trees, and animals is concerned, we may learn much from them; but we have carefully to avoid their over-ornamentation. In their treatment of architecture, want of subordination of the single parts to a well-proportioned total is the greatest fault; in their sculptures of the human figure, the soft and waving lines predominate, creating a kind of voluptuous sensuality which is entirely opposed to good sculpture. Their naturalism is objectionable, and leads to a wild, fantastic coarseness which can never be pardoned in art. Measure and harmony are wanting. Gorgeous and mean, powerful and petty, sublime and ugly, are their products. Indian art, religion, and poetry are so closely united that it is impossible to understand the one without a diligent study of the other two. We have in Indian art the first attempts of humanity to step out of childhood. To children, wisdom is best communicated in symbols, mystic signs, fables, legends, and fairy-tales, and therefore Indian art is distinguished by these characteristics. The tupo, sutupo or sutheouphu, from the Sanskrit stûpa, a heap (our word top) or a pile of earth, corresponding to a tumulus, was at the same time a symbol of the religious principles of the Hindoos. It is said of Buddha that he once preached to his disciples, on the shores of the Ganges, on the instability of all things, the frailty of human life, on the grief and sorrows of our existence, comparing life to a water-bubble, consisting of the four elements and still perishing so quickly. The water-bubble thus lent its form to the tope and daghopa, which latter, according to W. v. Humboldt, means ‘hider of the body,’ destined for the reception of Buddha’s relics. The tower which rises inside the tope is symbolic of the nine incarnations of Vishnu. We have in the Indian temple, as in our Gothic churches, a homily in stone. The arched dome has to remind us of the perishableness of life; the daghopa, with its seven or nine divisions, tells us that there is hope for the immortal soul to reach heaven through seven or nine degrees of purification. The protecting canopies (umbrellas) are symbolic of Buddha’s intercession, which he is sure to accord, if we only recognise the nihilism (nothingness) of our earthly existence.
The religious construction was also extended to every-day utensils, a tendency which was universal with all the people of the Aryan group. To these typical ornamentations belong the lotus flower and the tree and serpent ornament. The religious conception is everything with the Indian. It is not the form itself that he cares for, but the religious thought which is expressed emblematically, allegorically, or symbolically. This is the reason why he clings to his fourteen-armed divinities. It is God and His powers that he wishes to represent; but, whenever man attempts to express the incomprehensible or the abstract in visible and concrete forms, he errs. The soul of the Indian is absorbed in God: in Him is everything; the world is without Him and still within Him. All beings take their origin in Him and return to Him. An everlasting emanation and absorption is continually proceeding before the eyes of the Indian, and, looking for a type of this wonderful process, he found it in the ‘Aswatha’ tree, the Indian fig-tree (Ficus Indica). The banyan takes root, so to speak, in the air, grows downwards, grasps the earth with its branches, shoots upwards again, and repeats this process ‘ad infinitum.’ Everything coming near its feelers is embraced, covered over, and in this mystic encircling, annihilated. From time immemorial this sacred tree has been the tree of life, the symbolic tree of the petrifaction, vivification, and incarnation of God’s spirit in minerals, plants, animals and man. This pantheistic conception is not favourable to art: it crushes the powers of the artist, who has to deal with too great an ideal weight in forms.
There is another species of fig-tree (Ficus religiosa) which does not take root again, but the leaves of which appear eternally to tremble; it became the symbol of the ever-moving and oscillating spheres filling the universe. The tree combines two working cosmical forces, it partly remains the same and still continually changes and varies; it is now covered only with leaves, by degrees with leaves and blossoms, and at last with leaves and fruits; then its vitality apparently dying away, leaves, blossoms, and fruits vanish, to be renewed again with the same regularity and abundance. The mind, not yet accustomed to account for every phenomenon by simple or compound gases, globules, or atoms, set in motion by affinities, is altogether absorbed by the miraculous phenomena of nature, and, having been kept for thousands of years in this absorption, is incapable of seeing objects in their proper light. It sees in every form a metaphysical cause, which leads in ornamental art to those entwined, confused, monstrous, and bizarre combinations, which mar symmetry, mock eurythmy, distort proportion, have no direction, and, trying to express the inexpressible, have no expression at all.
The artist, if he wishes to work in the Indian style, must make himself acquainted with the feelings that animate the Indian mind. He will do best by generally using their arabesques, and arranging them after a careful study of the antique into symmetrical forms. The Indian conventional treatment of plants in surface-decorations is unsurpassed, and in this we may learn from them; but we have to beware of their monotonous excellence, and their everlasting repetitions. We may, here and there, use their forms, but we must bring order and measure into the wild and unintelligible chaos. If we want to produce entirely Indian patterns we must not alter them, or else we destroy their effect; but we may be original in merely using the form, and endowing it with a spirit of our own; this being the great advantage of the historical study of art.
Indian architecture has been well systematised by Mr. Fergusson. We have in the north the Bengallee, in the south the Dravidian, and in the west the Chalúkyan style; besides these we have three distinct religious styles—the Brahmanic, the Buddhistic, and, at a later period, the Mahomedan.
Turning to the Cis-Himâlâyans, who appear under numberless names of tribes, nations, and races, and by degrees peopled Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Northern Europe, Italy, Spain, France, and England, and carried religion and civilisation into Egypt; we begin to tread, for the first time, on really historical ground, for we shall be able to place events in time absolute.
Persia—the Hebrew Elam, the Indian Paraça, from Pars, or Fars, or Fardistan—differs entirely in geographical position, climate, and natural products from China or India. Hekatæos, Artemidoros, Eratosthenes, and Strabo describe the climate and soil of Persia as cold and sterile in the north, temperate and fertile in the central or valley regions, and hot and enervating in the south. We have, therefore, enterprising activity, energetic courage from the north, and a counteracting regulating element in the centre, tinged with the dreamy idleness of the south. The aspect of nature is less oppressive. Instead of gigantic creepers, the vine, with its juicy grapes, clings to tall and fruitful trees; bright-eyed gazelles abound; lions and tigers excite to daring hunts; exquisitely-coloured and fragrant roses perfume the air, and open the mind to the gentler impressions of a tender beauty. The Persians, Assyrians, and Babylonians rose to power, declined, and passed away with all their grandeur; but in these very changes there were activity and life. The Persians were the first to proclaim a governing universal unity, which endowed men with forces, enabling them to become virtuous and intellectual by their own exertions. They remained faithful to the first impressions of nature, in which the Eternal Spirit revealed himself.
The Persians, like the Indians, expressed the cosmical elements of creation symbolically by means of geometrical signs, which are given below.
