THE AIMS AND METHODS OF INDIAN ART. 35

fictile or literary, is more compelling and deeper than that
of nature herself. These pure ideas, thus disentangled
from the web of circumstance by art, are less realised and1
.so more suggestive than fact itself. This is the explana-
tion of the passionate love of nature expressed in Indian
.art and literature, that is yet combined almost with
indifference to the beauty, certainly to the ; pieturesqiie-
ness' of nature herself.

An essential part of the ideal of beauty is restraint in
representation :

" The hands and feet should be without veins. The
{bones of), the wrist and ankle should not be shown7>
{Sukracharya). * Invisible ankles' and wrists are also
•considered beautiful in real life (see Brihad ftanihitc^ II.
xxi., 3, and xxin., 2). The sinews too should not be
visible. One of the 80 lesser teches of the Buddha was,
this : i neither veins nor bones are seen.'

The figure of Avalokitesvara (Plate III.), a small and
^exquisite bronze of about the Seventh Century, well
Illustrates this ideal of generalisation .and abstraction.

Over-minuteness would be a sacrifice of breadth.
It is not for the imager to spend his time in display-
ing his knowledge or his skill; for over-elaborated
detail may destroy rather than heighten the beauty
•of the work. The feeling behind this desire for a-bstract
form, and the suppression of unessential detail is exactly
analogous to the feeling for pure line and expressive
lines in Japanese, and some modern European black
4ind white work. All that is not necessary to express the
artist's thought is actually a hindrance to its complete
•expression and reception. But this objection to the
laborious realisation of parts of a work of art, must not "be
^confused with the pernicious doctrine of the excellence of