BRITISH MUSEUM

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 156, 30 December 1925, Page 3

BRITISH MUSEUM

AMAZING WALL PAINTINGS

SUPEBB INDIAN DEOOEATIONS.

How extraordinary it is that more notice is not taken, in the Press and otherwise, of the fine exhibitions organised from time to .time in the King Edward the Seventh Galleries of the British Museum, writes B. B. Tatlock, in the London "Daily Telegraph." The gallery adjoining th« Print Boom is probably the most perfect in London, and there one cam always count on seeing a large collection of drawings and prints that have recently been added to the ,great permanent collection. But at the present moment there is on view a. serie's of works that throws everything else i into the shade.* " *'"

- Hidden away among the hills near a village called Bagh, in. tie'State of Gwalior in India, there exists a group of mysterious caves, the work of. Nature amended by the gigantic labours of ancient man. In their vast interiors are many sculptured figures and the remains of fresco work, and in a sort of outer corridor are the original wall paintings from which modern native artists have just made the exact 'copies now exhibited at the Museum, through tbu kindness of H.H. the late Maharajah iSeindia of Gwalior and of the India. Society. Some two years ago I had the great I pleasure of hearing the * caves and their contents described by Mr. Asit Kumer Haldar, one of the few people of our day :*h>:.savs';m'ad>: the long and 'labonoua journey.L:to Bagh and seen the antazing,paintings with their own eyes. He fascinated me by his account of the overwhelming- impress?.pns made upon him by these beautiful evidences of the cultural antiquity, of his race. Ho told me much about the great pictures, and of their relationship to the famous works at Ajanta, and he hazarded'. the opinion that they might date from, as early as the fifth century \A-D. .(it is now thought to be more probable that they belong to the seventh century,), He described his wanderings within the grisly. bowels of the caverns, and told me with great simplicity and charm how in one of them he came upon..a' sadhu, or saint, who lived there, and seemed to exist largely on the immense gifts of sweetmeats of- | fered him by,the people of .the neigh* bourhobd, so that they might achieve salvation; "He is generally," said Mr. Haldar, "in a state of ecstatic intoxication from the use of Indian hemp or hashish. At night, in order to scare ' away the panthers and snakes who share bis cave, with him, he lights a fire, and beats spasmodically upon a drum." . .' The eyes of this terrifying species of saint, of bis superstitious supporters, and of a few scholars, such as those who a de the perfect copies of the painting!, are the only eyes that in modern iimes hare been able to enjoy at first hand the spectacle presented: by those early artists' record of some great procession' of guests, for that appears to be the subject of the paintings. The visitors, mounted, on horse and elephant, advance to take their places in some ceremony, 16ri,£ ago forgotten, to the beating of drums and cymbals and the dancing [ feet; of brown-skinned girls. Can the pictures represent the reception of a Persian Ambassador. at the Indian Couit? ' One can but guess. What is certain is that, as works of art, they are beyond all praise. l>w specimens even of early Italian,painting itself could stand beside them. As 'decorative'designs they are superb; their colour is something to remember; as expressions of life and movement they reprosent^notonly a 1 curious and fascinating culture or a particular niofnent in the 'evolution" 6f ait, I'ut have a genuinely universal value. Their exhibition.is one of the most important events of -its [kind in, decent years; yet when I visited the museum the other day I found only two citizens of London besides myself who had thought it'worth.'their', while to loot in. If such things were shown in Paris, New York, Berlin, or Petrograd, a cordon of police would be needed to control the crowd of vi» tors.' •■• ■ ■ ■," -■ ■■'- l ■'••_;' ;- -.