India ink

“ In figures and light ornamental designs, that come upon a dark ground, the India ink line is not put over, but closely to the outside pencil mark, or such figures will become too faint in the beginning, and are lost in the dark ground, whilst it can always be remedied by the subsequent removal of parts that have been drawn too heavily. ”

“ And if this be the case, is it not highly probable that the black Indicum was what we at present call Indian ink, which approaches so near to the finest ivory-black, and black of wine lees, that it is often counterfeited by these substances, a preparation of which is frequently sold as Indian ink to unwary purchasers? Indian ink is in general use in India, and has been so in all probability since the earliest ages. In India all artificial productions are of very great antiquity ”

“ The dust is used for polishing, and in the preparation of Indian ink, and even for food in the form of ivory jelly. The scraps come in for inlaying and for the numberless purposes in which ivory is used for small domestic and decorative objects. India, which has been called the backbone of the trade, takes enormous quantities of the rings left in the turning of billiard-balls, which serve as women’s bangles, or for making small toys and models, and in other characteristic Indian work. ”

“ It is the only country that has a monopoly of grand and imposing specialties. When another country has a remarkable thing, it cannot have it all to itself—some other country has a duplicate. But India—that is different. Its marvels are its own; the patents cannot be infringed; imitations are not possible. And think of the size of them, the majesty of them, the weird and outlandish character of the most of them!
There is the Plague, the Black Death: India invented it; India is the cradle of that mighty birth.
The Car of Juggernaut was India’s invention. ”

“ It is long since the connoisseur of Indian art awakened from the dream that India has been an isolated country. The fact is, that it lies in the way of all commerce between the far East and the West, and that it can be, and has been, approached as easily from land as from the sea. ”

“ With a rude machine, costing, with all its appurtenances, but a half dollar or dollar, seated on the ground of his clay-built hut, the Hindu weaver produces fabrics of wonderful fineness and elegance, that once were the admiration of the world. Now, however, the great cheapness of the goods made by the aid of machinery and steam in Europe and America, has diminished the demand for Indian cloths abroad, and even threatens in India itself to drive the laborious Hindu from competition with his more ingenious competitors. ”

“ M. Le Bon truly observes that 'la puissance de déformation du génie hindou est en effet si grande, que les formes empruntées subissent des transformations qui les rendent bientôt méconnaissables.' Many illustrations of this proposition in both plastic art and literature might be cited. When the Indians adopt and adapt a foreign suggestion they do it so cleverly and transmute the spirit of the work so completely that the imitation seems to be indigenous and original. ”

“ The more advanced pupils use books printed by the mission or the tract society; and the little ones have the sanded floor for primer and copy-book, writing, as in the girls' school, with their fore-finger, and reading as they write. They still, however, in many lessons, adhere to the Hindu custom of writing with an iron style or graver upon strips of palm-leaf, as in the days when Alexander the Great invaded India. The leaf of the palmyra-palm is cut into pieces a foot or two in length, and an inch or more in width. ”

“ Whether the information the ethnologist collects can be put to any administrative use does not concern him, nor does he desire that his impartiality shall be affected by these considerations. But, in a little book of this kind it may not be amiss to point out that one result of British rule has been the growth of a new type of Indian, the educated Indian; who, whether he be Hindu or Muhammadan or Buddhist, is at least inclined to subordinate the old hereditary divisions to common political ambitions. ”

“ No record is left of the passing of those bands of colonists from West to East. We can only gather from the writings of subsequent historians in classical times that for centuries they must have drifted eastward from Syria, Armenia, and Greece, carrying with them the rudiments of the arts and industries of the land they had left for ever, and providing India with the germs of an art system entirely imitative in design, colour, and relief. ”

“ We may get it when we have the same powers; we shall then hoist our own flag. As is Japan, so must India be. We must own our navy, our army, and we must have our own splendour, and then will India's voice ring through the world.
Editor: You have well drawn the picture. In effect it means this: that we want English rule without the Englishman. You want the tiger's nature, but not the tiger; that is to say, you would make India English, and when it becomes English, it will be called not Hindustan but Englistan. ”

“ It seems probable that in several processes which the Indian artist borrowed, he followed Japan, without allowing himself slavishly to copy. The art of India as represented in porcelain manifests itself in a high technical skill, in the most exquisite delicacy, and in a close attention to all the minutiæ of detail. Indian figure-painting owes to these three qualities its superiority alike over those of Persia and of the extreme East. In the beauty consisting of delicacy and careful precision of finish, neither country makes even an approach to an equality with it. ”

“ It's just typical of what Western civilization has done so far for India. Like new cloth on an old garment, it has just patched itself on in an obvious, startling, ugly patch, absolutely ruining the charm of things Eastern and picturesque. So utterly unlike, it seems impossible they should ever merge gracefully the one into the other. ”

“ It may be artistic to imitate nature and even try to improve upon her, but we Indians think it very tiresome, especially as one considers the material side of the work—the pigment, the brush, the canvas! There is no mystery there; you know all about them! Worst of all is the commercialization of art. The rudely carved totem pole may appear [149] grotesque to the white man, but it is the sincere expression of the faith and personality of the Indian craftsman, and has never been sold or bartered until it reached civilization. ”

“ Day after day the people congregate to listen, with rapt attention, to the old national stories, and the moral lessons drawn from them, for their instruction, by the Pandits. To this day a considerable proportion of the people of India order much of their lives upon the models supplied by their venerable epics, which have, [10] moreover, mainly inspired such plastic and pictorial work as the Indian people have produced; being for the Hindu artist what the beautiful creations of Greek fancy, or the weird myths of the Middle Ages, have been for his European brother. ”

“ It is quite true that the art of India is delicate and refined. But it has one curious character distinguishing it from all other art of equal merit in design—it never represents a natural fact. It either forms its compositions out of meaningless fragments of colour and flowings of line; or if it represents any living creature, it represents that creature under some distorted and monstrous form. To all the facts and forms of nature it wilfully and resolutely opposes itself; it will not draw a man, but an eight-armed monster; it will not draw a flower, but only a spiral or a zigzag. ”

“ If only the study of Western examples helps to purify the Indian style without destroying its individuality, one would hope that Indian artists will eventually produce pictures which will have a great charm of their own. ”

“ Native jewellery is also being influenced for the worse by the infusion of Western ideas. The Indian workers in gold and silver are apt now to imitate the design of the cheap jewellery imported from Europe, and they are not aware that their own traditional designs are really much the most beautiful. Many of the chains and necklaces and bracelets worn by villagers, both male and female, are the best examples of unadulterated Indian art, because modern ideas and shapes have not yet reached them ”

“ India, in short, is governed, under the terms of a code of law based upon Indian custom, by a small number of picked British officials, only about 3,000 in all, among whom highly-trained Indians are increasingly taking their place, and who work in detail through an army of minor officials, nearly all Indians, and selected without respect to race, caste, or creed. She is a self-contained country, whose resources are devoted to her own needs. She is prospering to a degree unexampled in history. She has achieved a political unity never before known to her. ”

“ India paper, a thin yellowish printing-paper made in China and Japan from vegetable fibre, and used in taking the finest proofs from engraved plates—hence called India proofs; India shawl, a Cashmere shawl.—East India Company, a great chartered company formed for trading with India and the East Indies, more especially applied to the English Company, incorporated in 1600 and abolished in 1858; East Indian, an inhabitant or a native of the East Indies ”

“ The art is repeatedly mentioned in the Vedas. The purity of Indian Art is endangered in modern days by the introduction of machine-made goods and European design. (Consult Dr. Birdwood’s Handbook of Indian Art.)
Indian Ink or Chinese Ink. A black pigment for water-colour painting, made from oil and lamp-black, thickened with some vegetable gum, and scented with musk or camphor. Many cheap and poor imitations of it are made.
Indian Ochre. A red pigment. (See Red Ochres.)
Indian Paper. A delicate yellowish paper used for proof impressions in engraving. ”

“ Our palates are accustomed to the food which they have supplied to us from our very childhood, and hence whatever comes to us now from the thought-mines of India is generally put aside as merely curious or strange, whether in language, mythology, religion, or philosophy. But however foreign Indian thought may appear to us, it has filled an important place in the growth of the human race, and that growth is important, whether it took place on the borders of the Ilissos or on the shores of the Ganges. In India we still see, as it were, the last traces of the primordial surprise at this world. ”

“ When we speak of the Vedic hymns as representing the religion, the thoughts and customs of India three thousand years ago, we cannot mean by India more than some unknown quantity of which the poets of the Veda are the only spokesmen left. When we now speak of India, we think of 250 millions, a sixth part of the whole human race, peopling the vast peninsula from the Himalayan mountains between the arms of the Indus and the Ganges, down to Cape Comorin and Ceylon, an extent of country nearly as large as Europe. ”

“ As an integral part of the Indian body politic they are entitled to all the consideration which they deserve by virtue of their intellectual or economic position. They should henceforth be Indo-British both in spirit and in name. They will find the Indians quite ready to forget the past and embrace them as brothers for the common prosperity of their joint country. ”

“ Thus these non-Aryan provinces were becoming gradually known to the Hindus, and were slowly coming under Hindu influence and power when the Epic Period closed and the Philosophic Period began.
The waves of Hindu conquests rolled onwards, and the aborigines submitted themselves to a higher civilization and a nobler creed. Rivers were crossed, forests were cleared, lands were reclaimed, wide wastes were peopled, and new countries hitherto aboriginal witnessed the rise of Hindu power and of Hindu religion. Where a few scanty settlers had penetrated at first, powerful colonies grew ”

“ The interest of the West was of course interrupted when the Turks thrust themselves in between Europe and India and blocked the road Eastward overland. But the sea-road round the Cape of Good Hope was discovered, and West and East met more directly again, and Britain's special interest in India began. Judged by the recent output of English books on India, the interest of Britons in things Indian is rapidly increasing, and, pace Strabo, it is hoped that this book, the record of the birth of New Ideas in India, will not only increase the knowledge but also deepen interest and sympathy. ”

“ On the other hand, the old indigenous industries of India decayed greatly during the latter part of the 19th century. The colonies of hand-workers in silk, cotton, carpets, brass and silver ware, wood and ivory, and other skilled craftsmen, which formerly existed in various parts of India, have fallen off both in the extent of their output and in the artistic excellence of their work. ”

“ But it seems clear that Indian art in the Maurya and Sunga periods, whatever may have been the nationality of the artists employed, attained a high standard of merit when compared with anything except the masterpieces of Greek genius, and that it deserves an honourable place in the history of the artistic achievements of the world.
The inscriptions dispersed throughout the empire as described were written either at the capital or at the head quarters of one or other of the viceroys, and then made over to skilled stone—cutters for incision on the rocks and pillars. ”

“ It would probably be considered almost a heresy even to suggest that the various styles of dress worn by Indian men are not really more picturesque than many other styles. A street in an Eastern city, with its throng of quaintly dressed people, is much more fascinating in appearance than the sombre hues of an average London crowd in the winter time. The rich colours and the sparkling jewels of an assembly of Indian nobility attract the eye by their brilliance. ”