Page:Bulandshahr- Or, Sketches of an Indian District- Social, Historical and Architectural.djvu/90

 citizens, in their shops and dwelling-houses, had followed the example thus set, and were everywhere repeating the same dreariness of design, only in inferior materials and with less careful execution. It is too often forgotten by those in authority that it is only the perfection of its mechanical finish which, in European work, often compensates in part for the want of artistic originality. By combining the poverty of western invention with the clumsiness of eastern technique, the characteristic virtues of both races are sacrificed. Yet, this is the plan which is systematically adopted throughout British India. The design for a new church or town-hall is supplied by an English engineer, who openly avows his ignorance of architecture; while the execution is left to native workmen. The latter inherit the artistic traditions of the country, but are unskilled in the management of modern mechanical appliances, and are utterly untaught in the principles of European style, so that they cannot appreciate either the boldness of a Gothic moulding, or the elegance of contour and proportion upon which mainly depends the charm of a Grecian order.

It was not thus that the Muhammadans, the earlier conquerors of India, achieved those architectural triumphs in mosque and palace, which we now conscientiously restore with many expressions of idle admiration, but apparently without gathering much practical instruction from the method they inculcate. Their accurate reproduction is undoubtedly in itself an excellent undertaking and one that reflects the highest credit on the Government, but the functions of design are not vitally stimulated, nor is art adequately encouraged by an exclusive devotion to the past. The general outline of any large scheme of improvement, and the site and ground plan of the different buildings that are to be grouped together, are matters upon which the Hindu—with his overpowering passion for detail—does well to follow foreign guidance. The execution also will be largely benefited in evenness by European supervision; but the composition of the façade and all the details of the decoration are best left to the craftsmen who will have to execute them. In working out their own conceptions, or repeating the familiar types of local tradition, both mind and hand will act more freely than when they are set to copy forms and mouldings, which they have never practised and do not understand. The carpenters and bricklayers whom I have employed at Bulandshahr are, for the most part, the very same men who raised the bare walls, and set up the tasteless door frames that dis-