Chapter 5
a museum of oriental art by lionel gust the recent ever-memorable visit of the king emperor of india with the queen empress to his indian dominions and their safe and happy return from their mission of good will and sympathy with the oriental races under the sway of the british crown have done much to bring home to the minds of thoughtful people at home the need for better comprehension and acquaintance something more than scholastic and exotic with the habits customs religious observances and artistic expression of the various races under the british flag it seems to be generally accepted at home as well as in india that the personal visit of the king emperor has done much towards providing an efficient means of breaking down the intellectual barriers between east and west although india must continue to be a dependency controlled by military force it is not to this form of hegemony that one must look for the desired result
even justice administered by vigorous and impartial law cannot be relied upon for supplying the milk of human sympathy in an alien race religion and the fine arts being both in their different ways modes of expression of mankind's craving for the ideal for some knowledge of the unknowable some solution of the mysteries of good and evil some approachment towards the end and object of all things are perhaps the field on which eastern and western minds should be able to understand each other best in spite of the intense and perhaps to some minds hopeless antagonism between east and west at the present time that the minds of thinkers and statesmen even of leaders of religion are not adverse from discussion and further instruction upon oriental literature and teaching has been shown by the renewed demand for an extension of facilities for oriental studies and the recognition of such studies as essential for the welfare of the british nation as perhaps the greatest oriental power in the world at this point it should be said that oriental studies must be held to cover the whole field of asia in addition to india and its diverse races persia tibet china japan are all emanations of distinct but allied lines of intellectual development and human progress
while the whole story of the religion of islam as a working power in the history of the world in more than one continent demands more knowledge and attention than is at present given to it in this country the recent expeditions to chinese turkestan german and french though promoted by british enterprise have revealed treasures of artistic and literary knowledge and have thrown much light upon the interdependence of chinese and indian art and thought attention has been drawn in the burlington magazine to the valuable results already obtained from the discoveries of dr orelstein and mpelyat in turkestan it is surmised that similar expeditions in the unknown and inhospitable region of tibet might lead to discoveries of equal worth the writings of dr ananda kumaraswamy of which a valuable example is contributed to this number of the magazine have thrown a new light upon the history of painting in india a subject already illuminated by the patient research and acumen of mrs herringham
mr haval and others have contributed to the same cause mr lawrence binion of the british museum has taken up the task of expounding to british audiences the history and the meaning of the fine arts in the far east one need only walk down bond street and st james street to become aware how assertive in the market have become the wares of the far east in ceramics and textiles even in painting and sculpture what has been and is still the official attitude towards oriental art what steps must the student of oriental art fresh from the wonderful organizations in berlin paris and elsewhere on the continent take to pursue his researches in london he is aware that the british nation possesses treasures of oriental art of surpassing interest but where is he to find them well he must be told that he must go to the british museum and on the main staircase he will find the sculptures from the famous amuravati tope but he must not expect to find any other examples of indian or oriental sculpture in that institution
if he wishes to study chinese and japanese and japanese painting he must go to the department of prints and drawings but if he wishes to study chinese and japanese printed books he must go to a special section of the library downstairs if he wishes to study persian paintings and manuscripts he must go to yet another department in the museum that of manuscripts if he be working on ethnological lines he will find much to interest him connected with aboriginal and savage races of either hemisphere but little of real use to him relating to the more highly developed civilizations of the far east in most cases he will be advised to complete his studies by a visit to the victoria and albert museum let us follow him there the student will probably make his way first to the indian museum or more strictly speaking that section of the victoria and albert museum which is set apart by the board of education for the exhibition of certain industries practised at the present day in india
in this part of the museum which he will probably have entirely to himself he will find an interesting but quite uninstructive exhibition of certain industrial products of india textiles joinery ceramics all arranged according to a hide-bound system of classification by subject without much reference to the intellectual racial climatic or any other circumstances which have governed the progress and produce of these industries the products of send of rajputana of bengal of madras of nepal and even of tibet are classified together under subject quite regardless of geographical or racial distinctions this unfortunate set of affairs is brought about by our national disease of compromise the middle course whereby the regulations insisted upon by the board of education are adhered to on the one hand and the equally insistent demands of the indian government are met on the other resulting in complete negation of any satisfactory result other than solving the amour propre of each department of the state
our student however may wish to pursue the study of ceramics further and will be told that he must cross the road and look for chinese japanese and persian ceramics in the main collection of the victoria and albert museum bearing always in mind that an important section of national property in the case of oriental ceramics is to be found in the british museum if he wishes to study embroidery he must hunt for oriental examples other than indian in yet another department if he wishes to study architecture and the plastic arts it will be difficult to instruct him exactly what to do and he may run some risk of being recommended just as doctors recommend a long-sieve wage to a tiresome patient to try the imperial institute and the bethnal green museum if it be once recognized that the arts of the far east have been and are still being evolved out of a continuous progression of human thought and intellectual expression derived more directly from primitive civilizations than the arts of the west
and rarely influenced at any time by these western arts with advantage to either side it will be understood how necessary it must be to have a museum of oriental art alone in direct connection with an institute for oriental studies if it be also recognized that all our own traditions of religion our very race history the foundations of our european languages are traceable by common acceptance and in many cases by actual proof to an asiatic source we should feel conscious of a greater debt to asiatic intelligence than we have ever even attempted to pay there is no need for controversy no need for antagonism between christianity on the one hand and islam buddhism and hinduism on the other between the canons and ideals of western art as derived from the pure intellectual atmosphere of hellas and the more turbid streams of art in persia india or china the establishment of a national school of oriental studies with a great museum of oriental art attached to it would be proof not only of the importance of the position of the british empire as an oriental power
but of that simple blending of this power with human sympathy and good-will which was lately symbolized by the figure of the king emperor and person on his throne at delhi a museum of oriental art by lionel gust
