Indian artists, in heavy gilt frames and properly hung,
although still rather higher than is usual with us. Some are family
portraits; some are scenes from the histories of the gods. The colours
used are exceedingly brilliant, and the picture itself is often
painted on a very bright background. The drawing, which used to be the
defective part of Indian pictures, is much improving now that drawing
has become a regular part of the education of the Indian boy.

It is rather difficult to judge of the artistic value of a picture
painted in a style so unlike Western models. But on the whole one is
led to think that the brilliant colours are suited to the country, and
that they are blended with astonishing taste, considering the extreme
difficulty of blending happily hues of such a pronounced character. 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.

Their mythology for the most part only supplies them with gods whose
traditional form is either grotesque, or repulsive, or sensual. But
when Christianity has been accepted, and incorporated into the lives
of the people, the wide field for artistic and religious effect which
will then open out will give new scope, and one may expect some very
striking results when familiar scenes of sacred story are depicted by
the Eastern pencil and brush.

Indians are fond of decorating the outside whitewashed walls of their
temples and houses with mural paintings. They often present a quaint
mixture of hunting-scenes, and animals and gods, and soldiers and
Indians and Europeans. One such fresco, on the wall of the house of
the headman of Yerandawana village, is a most comical reproduction of
the garden front of Windsor Castle, taken from an _Illustrated London
News_, but embellished with many Indian characteristics. The purely
decorative part of these wall pictures is often graceful and
harmonious, and one can look forward to the day when the Christian
Indian artist will joyfully decorate, in his own traditional style,
the bare white walls of the village Church of St Crispin, and
beautiful saints and angels will take the place of the dethroned gods.

The, often richly coloured, garments of the Indian woman, whether poor
or rich, are always in perfect taste and harmony; even the Parsee
ladies, who boldly use colours of