Ajanta

Crowe was the first to seek to create a school of design native in the best sense, owing to its accuracy, truth and natural beauty to European inspiration, but moulding material into purely Indian types. Which taught students to appreciate Indian decoration while ignoring Indian sculpture and painting. The student was expected to be schizophrenic in his response. He would learn to appreciate Indian design and apply this insight into his work. But when he needed instruction in the ‘true’ principles of drawing, he would turn to the West .

Griffith held that there was no better model than Ajanta, urging this pupils to visit the caves as an exercise in consciousness, raising the implied inferiority of Indian art, drummed into the students, proved decisive. A number of them refused to copy the painting even on the pain of expulsion.

But drawing classes relied exclusively on antique plaster cast and copies of European Art. Nourished on Romantic literature, they were immediately drawn to Victorian story telling canvasses.