THE ESSENTIALS. The craft was much more a "calling calling" than a trade, and to this day Sinhalese craftsmen care more for congenial work, and personal appreciation, than for money payments. And as we have seen, in the most typical cases, the craftsman received no money wage at all, but was repaid in other ways. Many a British workman would be glad to exchange his money wage for such security and appreciation as belonged to the Sinhalese craftsman of a hundred years ago. Presents, indeed, were expected, even grants of land, but these were for faithfulness and excellence ; not a payment at so much a yard or so much an hour for such and such kinds of work. For the work was art, not commerce, and it would have been as idle to demand that a carpet like the Ardebil carpet should be designed and made at so much per square foot, as to expect Academy pictures to be done in the same way; indeed, I think it would be more reasonable to sell these by the square yard, than to suppose that the works of the Medieval Eastern craftsman could be valued in such a way. If now, in conclusion, we endeavour to sum up the results to which we are led by this study of the Indian craftsman, and by a correlation of his position in society with that of the craftsman in periods of good production in the Western world, and in other parts of Asia, we find that no really great traditional art has ever been produced, except under the THE ESSENTIALS. following conditions: Freedom of the craftsman from anxiety as to his daily bread; legal protection of the standard of work; his art not exploited for profit. These are the material conditions; even more important is that spiritual conception of the serious purpose of art, which we find expressed in the work of true craftsmen of whatever age or place, but perhaps more in India than anywhere else. In other words, it has only been when the craftsman has had the right to work, the right to work faithfully, a right to the due reward of his labour, and at the same time a conscious or subconscious faith in the social and spiritual significance of his work, that his art has possessed the elements of real greatness. And so we can hardly avoid the conclusion that these will always be conditions necessary for the production of fine art and craft. LIST OF APPENDICES. I. SIR GEORGE BIRDWOOD ON THE II. SIR GEORGE BIRDWOOD ON III. WILLIAM MORRIS ON COMMERCIAL WAR. IV. E. B. HAVELL ON CRAFTSMEN AND CULTURE. V. E. B. HAVELL ON THE OFFICIAL SUPPRESSION OF INDIAN CRAFTSMANSHIP AT THE PRESENT DAY. VI. LAFCADIO HEARN ON CRAFT GODS IN JAPAN. VII. LAFCADIO HEARN ON CRAFT GUILDS IN JAPAN. VIII. SER MARCO POLO ON CRAFT GUILDS IN CHINA. IX. BHIKKU P. C. JINAVARAVAMSA ON CRAFTSMEN IN SIAM. X. MUNICIPAL INSTITUTIONS IN ANCIENT INDIA. XI. BOOKS RECOMMENDED READER. ΤΟ THE H APPENDIX I. SIR GEORGE BIRDWOOD ON THE INDIAN VILLAGE "THE POTTER. HE Indian potter's wheel is of the simplest and rudest kind. It is a horizontal fly-wheel, two or three feet in diameter, loaded heavily with clay round the rim, and put in motion by the hand; and once set spinning, it revolves for five or seven minutes with a perfectly true and steady motion. The clay to be moulded is heaped on the centre of the wheel, and the potter squats down on the ground before it. A few vigorous turns and away spins the wheel, round and round, and still and silent as a 'sleeping" top, while at once the shapeless heap of clay begins to grow under the potter's hands into all sorts of faultless forms of archaic fictile art, which are carried off to be dried and baked as fast as they are thrown from the wheel. Any polishing is done by rubbing the baked jars and pots with a pebble. There is an immense demand for these water jars, cooking-pots, and earthen frying-pans and dishes. The Hindus have a religious prejudice against using an earthen vessel twice, and generally 66 |