Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 2.djvu/232

 190 INDIAN SARACENIC ARCHITECTURE. BOOK VII. Oudh (A.D. 1756-1847). In its capital there are ranges of building equal in extent and richness to those of any of the capitals above enumerated ; but degraded in taste to an extent it is hardly possible to credit in a people who so shortly before had shown themselves capable of such noble aspirations. 13. The style adopted by the short-lived dynasty of Mysore (A.D. 1760-1799), being further removed from the influences of European vulgarity, is not so degraded as that of Lucknow, but is poor and inartistic when compared with earlier styles. In an exhaustive treatise on the subject, the styles of Ahmadnagar and Aurangabad, A.D. 1490-1707, ought, perhaps, to be enumerated, and some minor styles elsewhere. These have not, however, sufficient individuality to deserve being regarded as separate styles, and the amount of illustration that can be introduced into a work like the present is not sufficient to render the differences sensible to those who are not personally acquainted with the examples. Even as it is, it would require a much more extensive series of illustrations than that here given to make even their most marked merits or peculiarities evident to those who have no other means than what such a work as this affords of forming an opinion regarding them. Each of these thirteen styles deserves a monograph ; but, except for Bijapur, 1 Ahmadabad, 2 Jaunpur, 3 and Fathpur Sikri, 4 nothing of the sort has yet been attempted, and even the works in which this has been attempted hardly quite exhaust the materials for these cities available for the purpose. Let us hope that the deficiencies will be supplied, and the others undertaken before it is too late, for the buildings are fast perishing from the ravages of time and climate and the still more destructive exigencies and ill-advised interferences of the governing power in India. 1 ' Architecture of Beejapore. Photo- graphed from Drawings by Capt. Hart and A. Gumming, C. E., and on the spot by Col. Biggs and Major Loch, with text by Col. Meadows Taylor and J. Fergus- son.' Folio, Murray, 1866. 2 ' Architecture of Ahmedabad. 120 Photographs by Col. Biggs, with Text by Sir T.C. Hope, I.C.S. and Jas. Fergus- son.' Small folio, Murray, 1866 ; The Muhammadan Architecture of Ahmad- abad and Gujarat generally will be found described in detail in volumes vi. to ix. of the * Archaeological Survey of Western India' (1896-1905.) 3 The Sharqi Architecture of Jaun- pur, etc., with Drawings, etc., by Ed. W. Smith, edited by J. Burgess (1889). 4 The splendidly illustrated work on the 'Moghul Architecture of Fathpur Sikri,' by the late Edmund W. Smith, in four quarto volumes with 402 excellent plates (1894-1898), must not be over- looked. It treats exhaustively of the architecture of that one place; and his (1901) supplies some important archi- tectural drawings.
 * Moghul Colour Decoration of Agra '