Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 2.djvu/359

 CHAP. X. MUGHAL ARCHITECTURE. 307 ing characteristic of the style, and both his palaces and his tombs owe their principal distinction to the beauty of the mode in which this new invention was employed. It has been doubted whether this new art was really a foreign introduction, or whether it had not been invented by the natives of India themselves. The question never, probably, would have arisen had one of the fundamental principles of architecture been better understood. When we, for instance, having no art of our own, copy a Grecian or Roman pillar, or an Italian mediaeval arch in detail, we do so literally, without any attempt to adapt it to our uses or climate ; but when a people having a style of their own wish to adopt any feature or process belonging to any other style, they do not copy but adapt it to their uses ; and it is this distinction between adopting and adapting that makes all the difference. We would have allowed Italians to introduce with their mosaics all the details of their Cinque-cento architecture. The Indians set about reproducing, with the new materials and processes wherever they came from the patterns which the architects of Akbar had been in the habit of carving in stone or of inlaying in marble. Every form was adapted to the place where it was to be used. The style remained the same, so did all the details; the materials only were changed, and the patterns only so far as was necessary to adapt them to the smaller and more refined materials that were to be used. 1 As one of the first, the tomb of I'timadu-d-daulah was certainly one of the least successful specimens of its class. The patterns do not quite fit the places where they are put, and the spaces are not always those best suited for this style of decoration. But, on the other hand, the beautiful tracery of the pierced marble slabs of its windows, which resemble those of Salim Chishti's tomb at Fathpur - Sikri, the beauty of its white marble walls, and the rich colour of its decorations, make up so beautiful a whole, that it is only on comparing it with the works of Shah Jahan that we are justified in finding fault. SHAH JAHAN, A.D. 1628-1658. It would be difficult to point out in the whole history of architecture any change so sudden as that which took place between the style of Akbar and that of his grandson Shah Jahan nor any contrast so great as that between the manly 1 Something of the same sort occurred when the Turks occupied Constantinople. They adapted the architecture of the Christians to their own purposes, but without copying. Vide ' History of Ancient and Medieval Architecture,' 3rd ed. vol. ii. pp. 557 et seqq.