54 ESSAYS IN NATIONAL IDEALISM.

only when, the mental image "is thus defined that the artist
begins to moiild or paint.

Another analogy between art and yoga is found in a
reliance upon knowledge obtained in sleep or dreams. One-
method of overcoming obstacles to yoga, says Pataivjali, is-
by " dwelling on knowledge that presents itself in dream
or sleep." Just this knowledge is referred to in the Agni
Parana (Oh, 43), where the imager is instructed, on the
night before beginning his work, and after ceremonial
.purification, to pray : " 0 thou Lord of all gods, teach me-
in dreams how to carry out all the work I have in my
mind/'

The same principles hold good in secular art. Every-
thing is painted or carved out of the artist's own head
(whence, as Burne~Jon.es truly said, all pictures ought to-
come) not from any visible model posing before him. Even
* drawing from nature' means ' drawing from, memory.'"
And this applies likewise to the modern school of Bengali
painting, which represents a, return to Indian idealism r
largely inspired by the painting of the Moghul period.

- It will be seen that the artistic method is thus practi*
cally identical with the method of personal devotion—
meditation on and self-identification with the mentally
conceived form of the Ishta Devata. And what a training"
such a method of worship provides for the imagination of
•the artist! For the tme artist is not he who f composes' a
-picture, but he who c sees * it. This apprehension of ideas,
apparently arriving from outside the ordinary conscious-
ness is * inspiration,' the real characteristic of genius. This-
is well expressed in the Persian distinction between*
mvard (to bring), applied to rhyming and composition by
one's own personal effort, and amacl (to come), applied
'to writing with spontaneous flow of thought, inspiration-