CHAPTER II.
Decline of Wood-Carving.
" T X rESTERN"
" ideas
are
the
bane
of
Indian
art.
Apparently it is
impossible for a native of India to imbibe English education
without losing his admiration for the indigenous arts of his country.
Accordingly those arts are either being ruined by neglect or vitiated by
A the demand for unsuitable imitations.
Government must necessarily
have prestige. It is unfortunate that the indirect effects should be so
deplorable. No craft has suffered more than wood-carving. Formerly the nobility and well-to-do citizens took delight in embellishing their houses
4
Monograph on Wood Carving.
with carved verandahs and balconies. All the chief entrances were filled with massive carved doors. In this class of work the Indian wood- carver is seen at his best. The craftsmen were retained by their employer in a sort of feudal relation. They lived and worked in the verandah of his house and received a regular salary; there was no hope of large profit, but they had a genuine enthusiasm for their art. The philosophic Hindu could demand nothing better than to spend his d^ys free from care in the gradual perfecting of a masterpiece of carving, to be set up in his native place, where his handiwork would be a source of credit during life and a monument after death. Working under such conditions, the Indian craftsman has no equal, Unfortunately the upper and moneyed classes had no real intelligent enthusiasm for art. They saw that the style of building erected by Government bore no resemblance to the designs of their mistris. Failing to realize that the simplicity and uniformity of official buildings resulted from considerations of economy and convenience, the well-to-do classes are abandoning the old traditions and clamour for " European
plainness." The late Mr. Growse once endeavoured to convince a native gentleman of the folly of this unreasonable craze, and referred to certain
buildings in the best native style, the erection of which he himself had -- superintended. He received the following answer : " The works which
'^ are carried out under your direction, however' pleasing in themselves, -- "have the one fatal drawback that they are not stamped with official
'' approval.
Nothing in the same style is ever undertaken by Gov-
" ernment. The trading classes do well to adhere to Hindustdni types ;
" but the landed gentry prefer to range themselves with their rulers,
" and thus to emphasize their distinction from the vulgar."
Thus, through being the object of the most sincere form of flattery,
the English rule has caused the country to be sprinkled with plain,
unlovely doorways and balconies, and has turned the mistri out of the
verandah.
Monograph on Wood Carving. The history of wood-carving in the last thirty years is nowhere more plainly written than in the streets of Pilibhft. Evidently the city was formerly a great centre of wood-carving. The bazaar is a long succession of carved doors and pillars, many being of the most delicate workmanship. Yet, although carpeaters still constitute a large percent- age of the population, only one old carpenter could be found who is prepared to execute an order for carving. There is no longer any demand for " hdrik ham,'' and the harhais have ceased teaching their children how to carve. In the old days the child sat by his father and was made to draw simple designs and practise the use of the carvers' chisel (chaursi) on a piece of waste board. Thus he acquired a certain skill in carving and design before he knew how to handle a common saw. This custom is fast dying out throughout India, and the hereditary skill accumulated through countless generations is running to waste. In Lower Bengal the end has already come, and wood-carving is practically extinct. It might perhaps be argued that English influence has compensated the wood-carvers for the loss of their former importance. Instead of labouring for small wages in the verandah of a native zaminddr or mahajan, he may now apply his skill in another direction by carving European articles de luxe, for which there is a considerable demand. Hence the Mrkhdnas of Hoshidrpur and Jullundur in the Panjdb, and Nagina and Bahdranpur in the United Provinces. The total number of workmen employed in this special trade is small, but the rate of profit is high. Unfortunately the wood-carving craft had no traditions in the matter of carving articles de luxe. Very little furniture is to be found in the mansion of an old-fashioned native. With the introduction of European models there inevitably came a vitiation of design. The Kashmir shawl trade was "poisoned" in the same way by agents sent out by French firms. The Indian craftsman is a master of design, and if only left to himself he will apply the rules of his craft with unerring taste to any new object. Once persuaded to abandon
J&'onograph on Wood Carving.
his " qaida " he rapidly deteriorates, and his work loses its spontaneity. The result is a series of inanities which have neither invention, variety nor charm.
There can be little doubt that one of the chief factors in the
excellence of the old mistris' work lay in the non-economic way in which
they regarded their task. Probability of enough remuneration to enable
them to keep themselves and their families in comfort was enough to
inspire them to produce work of the highest order. The prospect of making money beyond this limit did not stimulate them to increased
exertion. There is an article in the Indian Art Journal by Mr. Baden-
Powell, dealing with the apathy of Panjab brass-workers and their
unwillingness to avail themselves of his advice^ thus renouncing the
A possibility of a lucrative business.
traveller who visited the Panjdb
Exhibition remarked that apparently the only way to get native workmen to do anything was to shut them up in jails I
This curious indifference serves its purpose, and it is best to indulge -- the workman to the top of his bent.' "All over the East it is the same 'farda^ drawls the Cairene workman just as readily as his Indian brother says ' kaV " And when
this apathy is overcome, there is another difficulty to be feared. Having
become awake at last to the possibility of doing a fine trade in some
class of work, the workmen turn out piece after piece in such a hurry -- to get money, that the articles most of them copies of copies to begin -- ijvith have all the defects of the first copy gradually magnified, and
the ornamentation grows so poor that the demand falls off", both character
and technical merit being lost.
Sahdranpur, once celebrated for architectural wood-carving, shows
in its modern tiin work a striking example of this fatal tendency. Very
few articles of real artistic merit are turned out by the kdrkhdnas in their
haste to meet the demand.
" Made to
" sell
is plainly
stamped
on
most
of their
productions.
However, the objects displayed for sale on the railway stations are
Monograph on Wood Carving.
eagerly bought by tourists. It is questionable how long they last to
gladden the eyes of their purchaser, as the wood itself is kachcha and the
joining execrable.
Every kind of labour-saving appliance is welcomed and adopted in these Jcdrkhdnas. In the bazaar you may hear the hum of many fret-
work machines : by means of these abominations a heap of tun-wood boards is soon converted into a stack oijdli work. Each board is afterwards sawn up lengthwise into several thin planks. Hence the unfailing
symmetry of Sahdranpur work ! The curve of the leaves in floreated
patterns is produced by the simple expedient of hammering each patta
with a curved, oval-shaped punch.
For the better class of articles, the work of the machine is supple-
mented by hand carving, and it cannot be denied that the result is often
graceful and pleasing. But the greater part of Sahdranpur work is not
"
" wood-carving
in
the
true
sense,
and
is
unworthy
of
the
craft
which
fashioned the temple-doors of Northern India.