THE INFLUENCE OF MODERN EUROPE ON INDIAN ART. 67

Taste in dyed and printed textiles has declined
^enormously. Perhaps the most glaring example known to
me is the replacement of beautiful Indian printed cottons
in Madras, by cheaper products of Manchester, having
grea,tly degraded imitations of Indian ornament, or
perfectly meaningless decoration such as rows of bicycles,
•or pictures of banknotes. Some of these have been
published as an object lesson, in contrast with Indian
{prints. * It has been well remarked that such monstro-
sities are an insult to European knowledge and an outrage
.011 Indian art. Yet I have known educated Indians defend
their use on the ground that Indians f cannot be expected
:to keep to one pattern always,' and that ; if it is right
for Europeans to admire Indian patterns, why is it not
right for Indians to make use of European forms ?' In the
>sanae way, it is sometimes asked why Indians should not
,COpy modern, Western, classical, or any forms oŁ
•architecture that may please them, with the suggestion
•that the European advice to build in an Indian style is
merely the restxlt of a particular fancy, and that there can
be no real guiding principle Jb such matters. Only a
century of education, entirely false in aims and method,
<could have produced such a result as this. Those who
o-ave and those who accepted that education are equally

:at fault.

In illustration of architectural degeneration, n, few-
quotations will suffice.

"The modern palaces of the Nawabs of the Carnatic, of the
Raias of Ramnad or Travaneore, are all in the bastard Italian
style, adopted by'the Nawabs of Lueknow and the Babus of
Calcutta. Sometimes, it must be confessed, the buildings are im-
posing from their mass, and picturesque from their variety of
outline, bat the details are always detestable, first from being bad

* Journal of Indian Art, 1897.