ART AND YOGA IN INDIA. 59*

The Indian artist set himself deliberately to make the
unseen moral real than the seen. And by strange good for-
tune he was therein in the perfect sympathy and under-
standing of those for whom he worked ; for it was said in
India, that only those i devoid of Reason * think of Him...
the unmanifest, as having manifestation, knowing not the
reality that is hidden by His yoga may a.

Asia, indeed, has been almost continuously free from
the, to her, childish conception that the highest aim of art
lies in the successful imitation of nature. It has been left
for modern Europe to follow the example of Pheidias in an
endeavour rather to reproduce than to understand. Europe,
though temporarily freed in Gothic art from the purely
physical idealism of Greek, fell with the Renaissance once
more under the sway of its unsatisfying intellectualism ;
the logical conclusion follows in the modern complete sub-
jection of art to science. Corrupted by science, as has.
been truly said, the "Western mind now demands of artistsr
not great ideas, imagination, fancy, tenderness, but what
it calls c realism,' little dreaming how far removed this may
be from ' truth.' Modern art is primarily an intellectual
process. The historical or religious painter ha,s become an
archaeologist—and this, forsooth, is what we mean by
4 faithfulness.' Not thus did the great painters of mediaeval
Italy or of China, or the sculptors of Egypt or of India work.
They indeed sought truth, but they sought it where alone it
is to be found, within. We talk of the faithful presentation
of life: but what is life ? We do not realise that these men
lived in a world more real and wonderful than any that we
know. That life was the life they represented for xis.
Because we know it not we call it unreal. It is what men:
dream, not anything they do, that is real. Infinitely
greater is thought than action. The dreams of a race,.