AGRICULTURE AND REVENUE 275

of the old Aryan symbols that are to be found interwoven
in the pattern of it.
The worst enemy of ancient forms of Indian art are
the manufactures of Europe and what Sir G. Birdwood
calls the “irresistible energy of the mechanical productiveness
 of Birmingham and Manchester,” which foods
India with cheap designs and stifles native intelligence.
[n architecture, as in art design, mongrel styles are now
‘aking the place of the traditional forms which combined
perfect adaptation to climate and surroundings with admirable
 success in meeting the exact requirements of the
building. The reason of this is to be found in the fact
that the genius of the Indian artist is purely imitative and
not creative. He will copy anything which he believes to
be an emanation of a higher form of civilisation than his
own with admirable exactness. He will paint miniatures
with minute accuracy and painstaking care, but of original
pictorial art he has no idea. It is true that the Bombay
art schools are educating natives to paint pictures on
European methods, and with some success ; but at present
this school of native art is in its infancy, and it will never
make much impression on the mass of Indian art workmanship.
 The less that it makes, perhaps, the better.
Another enemy to Indian art is to be found in the
European globe-trotter—the casual visitor with wealth
enough to tempt the artisan into cheap and unfinished
productions for the sake of quick returns. A good
sxample of this may be found in the Simla bazaars,
where wood carving has degenerated into a half mechanical
 process, which results in a vast out-turn of work of
most inferior quality executed with a cheap rapidity which
was unknown and quite impossible to the artist of fifty
years ago.
In spite of modern deterioration the industrial arts of
India form so prominent a feature in the productions of
the country that they cannot be disregarded when dealing
with any question of general economic progress, and a
short reference to a few of the best known will not be out
of place.