ARAB CASEMENT FROM CAIRO (SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM. DRAWN BY W. CLEOBURY).
In the tomb of Yusuf Shah Cadez, at Multan, occur large perforated screens in tile work. This tomb, an excellent reproduction of which is to be seen in the India Museum, is a fine example of Mohammedan tile work and decoration in two blues—turquoise and ultramarine—on a warm white ground. In the luminous atmosphere of India, beneath the deep blue vault of the sky, such colour on such surface must be very beautiful.
Perhaps the love of intricate ornament in Indian carved and pierced work in the doors, window casements, and lattices may be due in part to the certainty of obtaining a bright, crisp, rich, sparkling effect in the broad and strong sunlight, where every touch would tell, and the fret or lattice work over a pierced opening would have all the richness and delicacy of lace.
Then in the solemn and dimly-lighted splendour of the interior of the mosques, the Mohammedan, alike in Arabia, Turkey, Persia, or India, found a grateful contrast and relief to the eye, while his religious imagination and emotion were stimulated. Much the same feeling intensified which comes over one who passes from the brilliant Venetian sunlight on the piazza, the glittering quays and dancing light and colour of Venice, into the subdued, cool, and golden shade of St. Mark's.
INDIA. CARVED STONE LATTICE WINDOW FROM THE MOSQUE OF THE PALACE OF AHMEDABAD.
This wonderful contrast of bright and dark, of glitter and solemnity, the splendour of sunlight and the solemnity of shade, can only be fully appreciated in southern or eastern countries. The pitch of light being higher the shade seems deeper, and yet it is a shade full of colour always. When the sun sinks, in the short afterglow everything seems fused in an atmosphere of luminous colour and half-tone, which transfigures and glorifies everything. We get an approach to it on the finest summer evenings in England, but with a different and generally less romantic background. It would appear, though, that climates which are characterized by constant sunlight and heat favour rather traditional than individual forms of art. The sun, the giver of life and light, becomes overpowering, always present, and in its searching beams leaves no hiding-place for the romantic imagination, except in temples and mosques at sunrise or sunset, or under the moon. We may have an equable and warm climate like Egypt, where all is sharply defined in the light of a clear and serene atmosphere, with a regulated, ordered life, as in her ancient days, under a long succession of dynasties, and we see the outcome in art—measured, calculated according to strict method and authority and convention, with but little room for individual feeling.
In Persia we find a climate of sharp contrasts, hot sun by day and sharp cold at night, verdure and desert, bare rock and flowery meadow side by side, and we get a wonderfully varied art, rich in colour and fantasy.
In India the invention, though kindred, perhaps even largely borrowed, seems tamer, the intricacy more calculated, the richness more mechanical; and we find this with a dependent people in a land of fiercer and more permanent sunshine, pursuing mostly an agricultural life, like the ancient Egyptians, under conditions practically unchanged for centuries.
In Greece, which fused and absorbed Asiatic elements in her art, we see another country of the sun, yet subject to winds and variations and marked transition of the seasons—a mountainous, rocky country, beautiful in form and embracing the sea. In art she has given us the perfection of figure sculpture.