Indian art is sadly degenerating through the intrusion of inferior Western designs. Modern houses in most Indian cities lack the artistic grace which distinguishes many of the old houses of wealthy people. Part of the beauty of many ancient dwellings in Poona City is to be found in their admirable proportions. Modern houses in India are often built in a pseudo-Gothic style, with barbarous innovations in the shape of base metal-work and glaring coloured glass, and in which all sense of proportion has been hopelessly lost.

Some of the modern palaces of Indian Rajahs are built and furnished in this style, at an immense cost, and with most incongruous results. Whereas many of the old palaces, and those of northern India in particular, afford beautiful examples of royal residences, well adapted to the needs of Indians, and yet capable of being modified for the use of modern-minded rulers who have adopted some of the household arrangements of the West. Sir Swinton Jacob has shown in the fairy-like palace which he built at Jeypore, but which internally you find exactly suited to the requirements of a modern museum, how possible it is to adapt Indian architecture to present-day needs. There is a good deal of carving, effectively placed and graceful in design and skilfully executed, both on the outside and inside of old houses in the City of Poona; and the balustrades that form the front of the narrow verandahs, which run along so many of the houses with happy effect, afford charming specimens of what the turner's craft can accomplish. But nowadays ironwork, such as adorns a cheap bedstead, more often than not is substituted for the graceful balustrade, and some tawdry decoration, or coarsely-cut stone corbel, takes the place of the picturesque carved woodwork.

The graceful outline of pots and pans used in Indian households has often been remarked upon, and happily at present there are no signs of degeneration in this department of domestic life. The traditional shapes still hold their ground; and even quite common utensils, made of coarse earthenware, are pleasing to look at. The more costly brass and copper vessels in ordinary daily use are delightful examples of how much beauty can be got out of an artistic outline, even when there is an entire absence of ornamentation. In the midst of a vast amount of apparent disregard for cleanliness, there are certain matters about which a Hindu is excessively particular. The metal cups and pans must be polished up to the highest pitch of perfection, and though the Hindu woman will take the dust or mud of the street for her polishing powder, the result of her labours is that the vessels shine brilliantly. They are the more beautiful because, in order that cleanliness may be assured by the smooth, unbroken surface, they are quite unadorned.

It has sometimes been discussed whether the specimens of old Indian brass in museums should be polished or not, and some collectors carefully preserve the old tarnish. It would be impossible in the English climate to keep the objects continually bright, without infinite labour; but it is well to remember, in considering the artistic merits of any brazen article, that its original normal condition was one of high polish.

Native jewellery is also being influenced for the worse by the infusion of Western ideas. The Indian workers in gold and silver are apt now to imitate the design of the cheap jewellery imported from Europe, and they are not aware that their own traditional designs are really much the most beautiful. Many of the chains and necklaces and bracelets worn by villagers, both male and female, are the best examples of unadulterated Indian art, because modern ideas and shapes have not yet reached them; or, if they see some of these new devices when they come to give their order to the goldsmith in the city, they are still conservative enough to prefer the designs of their forefathers. There are quaint and ingenious devices for fastening the necklaces, and part of the charm of the primitive handiwork is its individual character, shown in a certain roughness and want of rigid symmetry.

In the houses of the more old-fashioned wealthy Hindus, in their big reception-room, only rarely used, may be seen curious examples of the mistakes which may be made so easily when introducing objects of art from another country without adequate knowledge. Pictures from England, interspersed with mirrors, form the chief decoration on the walls of many of these saloons. They are hung almost touching each other, very high up, like the "sky-ed" line of the Royal Academy, but with nothing on the walls below, and they often present a most curious jumble: a few good engravings; gaudy pictures, first issued as advertisements; portraits of persons, known and unknown; worthless prints in gorgeous frames; and a picture with some merit, stuck all awry in a frame which does not belong to it.

In the houses of a younger generation you will see large oil paintings by modern Indian artists, in heavy gilt frames and properly hung, although still rather higher than is usual with us. Some are family portraits; some are scenes from the histories of the gods. The colours used are exceedingly brilliant, and the picture itself is often painted on a very bright background. The drawing, which used to be the defective part of Indian pictures, is much improving now that drawing has become a regular part of the education of the Indian boy.

It is rather difficult to judge of the artistic value of a picture painted in a style so unlike Western models. But on the whole one is led to think that the brilliant colours are suited to the country, and that they are blended with astonishing taste, considering the extreme difficulty of blending happily hues of such a pronounced character. If only the study of Western examples helps to purify the Indian style without destroying its individuality, one would hope that Indian artists will eventually produce pictures which will have a great charm of their own.

Their mythology for the most part only supplies them with gods whose traditional form is either grotesque, or repulsive, or sensual. But when Christianity has been accepted, and incorporated into the lives of the people, the wide field for artistic and religious effect which will then open out will give new scope, and one may expect some very striking results when familiar scenes of sacred story are depicted by the Eastern pencil and brush.

Indians are fond of decorating the outside whitewashed walls of their temples and houses with mural paintings. They often present a quaint mixture of hunting-scenes, and animals and gods, and soldiers and Indians and Europeans. One such fresco, on the wall of the house of the headman of Yerandawana village, is a most comical reproduction of the garden front of Windsor Castle, taken from an Illustrated London News, but embellished with many Indian characteristics. The purely decorative part of these wall pictures is often graceful and harmonious, and one can look forward to the day when the Christian Indian artist will joyfully decorate, in his own traditional style, the bare white walls of the village Church of St Crispin, and beautiful saints and angels will take the place of the dethroned gods.

The, often richly coloured, garments of the Indian woman, whether poor or rich, are always in perfect taste and harmony; even the Parsee ladies, who boldly use colours of astonishing brilliancy in their dresses, seem to be able to do so without producing that amazing discord of colour which greets the traveller from the East as he comes back Westwards into the streets of a European city.