Page:Hindu Art - its Humanism and Modernism.djvu/31

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HINDU ART


crafts) may be used as texts by those who want to prove the wholly non-secular character of Hindu art. But such art critics would commit the same fallacy as those psychologists who formulate the race-ideal of the entire Hindu population of all ages on the strength of a few sayings of Shakya the Buddha and other moralists. In spite of Shookra, Hindus have had sculptures of human beings in the streets and public places, bas reliefs of warrior-kings on coins, and paintings of men and women on the walls of their houses, palaces, and art galleries. Secular art was an integral part of their common life. Imagery and similes from the worldly paintings and sculptures are some of the stock-in-trade embellishments of every literary work, e. g., poetry, fiction, drama, in India.

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