Download File

138 THE FLIGHT OF THE DRAGON
itself declines, and the sense of beauty runs
thin. At the bottom, for what once was art
the expression of man's most holy emo-
tions smart tradesmen offer, at fancy prices,
mechanical prettiness, cheap sentiment, and
accurate representation.
Comparisons between the history of Asiatic
and of European art are admittedly possible ;
but as yet we believe the precise nature of the
similarity has not been stated. It lies in the
fact that both conform to the general laws of
decay. The Asiatic movement with which we
are familiar is essentially Buddhist ; it ex-
that sense of the universe that is
presses
expressed in another form by Buddhist doctrine
and its later developments along the
lines of Taoist idealism. How far the spread
of Buddhism in China represents a spiritual
reaction from the dry materialism of Confucianism
is no matter for brief and dogmatic
discussion. We need only say that the fourth-
century painting in the British Museum by
Ku K'ai-chih, though the artist himself is said
to have been a Buddhist, belongs clearly to
an earlier movement than that of which the
T'ang and just pre-T'ang masterpieces are
the primitives. By comparison with early
Buddhist art this exquisite picture is suffi-
ciently lacking in emotional significance to
tempt one to suppose that it represents the