The author reveals that the present work, embracing architecture, sculpture, and painting in its scope, aims at giving such a concise survey of the whole subject, free from dry technicalities, as will interest both the student and general reader, and serve as a useful handbook for travellers in India. At the same time it attempts a solution of several interesting problems which have exercised the minds of archeologists for many years, and gives the results of further researches in a field which still offers unlimited scope for the art student. In this respect, therefore, it enlarges upon and sometimes revises the conclusions arrived at in his previous works. It may serve as the foundation of a full and competent history of fine art in India, which still remains to be written. In the architectural section he has aimed at giving such an explanation as will enable the reader to perceive the intention of the builder, and correlate stupa, temple, monastery, palace, mosque, and tomb with the thought and life of the period to which they belong, rather than to classify them in a dry academic manner which makes the builder’s intention as unintelligible as the historian’s explanation. Only when the craftsman’s idea is realised will Indian architecture become a subject of living interest, an open book in which the thought and life of India are written from Vedic times down to the present day. The architecture of India will not then appear as a bewildering museum of marvels belonging to a bygone age, but as a still living tradition of practical craftsmanship constantly readapting itself to the spiritual and material needs of the age, and bearing witness to the wonderful constructive work of our Aryan predecessors, who three thousand years ago, occupying the same position in the East as their successors do to-day.
Ernest Binfield Havell (1861 – 1934), who published under the name E.B. Havell, was an influential English arts administrator, art historian and author of numerous books about Indian art and architecture. He was a member of the Havell family of artists and art educators. He was the principal of the Government School of Art, Calcutta from 1896 to 1905, where, along with Abanindranath Tagore, he developed a style of art and art education based on Indian rather than Western models, which led to the foundation of the Bengal school of art.In India, Havell initially served the Madras School of Art as Superintendent for a decade from 1884. He arrived Calcutta on 5th July 1896 and joined as Superintendent of the Government School of Art, Calcutta next day. In between, he went to England for a year from April 1902 to March 1903. While in England, he published two valuable articles on Indian art in the October 1902 and January 1903 issues of a well known art journal of London, The Studio. In January 1906 he left for England on long leave and finally in 1908, he was removed from the post.
