Description
In this editorial to a special issue on the arts of Lanka, the cultural and spiritual affinity between India and Ceylon is traced to the arrival of Buddhism in the 3rd century BCE, Chola and later conquests of Ceylon, and the art of the two countries which are similar in character though different in temperament. The resemblance is reflected in the techniques of building and fresco-painting, and religious themes. Ceylonese art has a documentary significance, and in some respects achieved a synthesis between East and West. In their knowledge of handling paint and insistence on rhythmic vitality, young painters in Ceylon are more advanced than other painters in the East. In the realization of the beauty and dignity of imaginative art lies the hope of friendship between Ceylon and India.