indeed more contrasted than the manner in which facial features are treated respectively by the Persian and Indian. The Persian adopts a process of extreme simplification. A single stroke often suffices for the mouth. The eye may be indicated by two strokes which are not even joined, or even by merely a stroke and a dot. [Vide Fig. 1.]
The force and variety of expression which the Persian artist obtains even in figures drawn on the smallest scale by means of what might be described as this short-hand method is simply astounding, and is clearly an inheritance from the Far East transmitted to him through Mongolian art. The West can scarcely show anything comparable unless it be, on a lower plane, in the work of some continental caricaturists or the nineteenth century. The Mughal artist draws every feature with a minute accuracy which on the small scale of some of the figures may even be regarded as waste of labour. In drawing the mouth he invariably gives a full outline of both lips. In his admirable representation of the eye, not only does he carefully outline the eyelashes, but the eyelid is invariably drawn with marvellous precision and correctness. [Vide Fig. 2.]
In his extreme elaboration of the handsome features with which he endows his personages, the Mughal artist is usually satisfied with an agreeably placid countenance, and seldom even approaches the dramatic force of the Persian although incomparably more correct in anatomy. Just like the Greek of the classic period, the Mughal artist frequently allows his sense of physical beauty to interfere with his power
of expression. As the scale of the picture increases, the Persian is apt to induce flimsiness; as it becomes reduced, the Indian method may lead to over-elaboration. For us, the essential point to be considered is that we can scarcely think of two methods more radically opposed. The Mongolian artists have introduced into Persian painting a Tartar type of features utterly different from the usual countenance of the Iranians, the persistence of which constitutes one of the most curious features of later mediæval Persian art. The artist sometimes trleS 1 tries to indicate racial differences by altering the obliquity of the eyes or the colour of the complexion, yet without ever freeing himself from the stereotyped Mongolian countenance. Here at least he is at a great disadvantage as compared with the Mughal painter whose admirable rendering of individual and racial characteristics is one of his chief glories.
It is unnecessary to analyse in full detail the other differences that distinguish Indian from Persian painting. The most casual attention will show that they are as startling as those that distinguish the rendering of the countenance. The correct proportions of the human figure are invariably adhered to in Mughal drawing, while the Persian allows himself an extraordinary degree of liberty in the proportions and delineation of limbs. Mention has already been made of the mannered action of the Persian personages, as contrasted with the natural, sometimes commonplace attitudes of the Indian. The Indian readily admits a discreet use of modelling which the Persian avoids as much as possible. The rendering of landscape and architecture in Persian art is conventional and at the same time fantastic in the extreme, though highly effective. In Mughal art, it is strictly realistic, just as might be expected from a survival of the primitive and early mediæval Indian tradition. From the time of Jehangir and Shah Jehan, it becomes obviously blended with European models in such a manner that it is often difficult to estimate the due share of each influence. The interpretation of architecture and vegetation in the Ajanta style comes already so near to the spirit of Western methods
but one which has long passed its prime, which is bound up in the formulas of decadent conventionalism, and totally incapable of further evolution. It is inconceivable that an art entirely of line could ever again evolve into an art of mass. Where such an apparent evolution has occurred, it is that the mass method had survived side by side with the line system. There are innumerable instances in which artistic fitness demands the rendering by touch as preferable to that by line, but the modern modelled picture after the manner of the Renaissance school is no "evolution" from line. The greatest masters in the West have used either line or touch with equal success, according to the exigencies of each particular style of work.
