of Central Asia include frescoes executed on the walls
of caves and buildings, and paintings on silk paper.[477] The origin
and affinities of this art are still the subject of investigation and
any discussion of them would lead me too far from my immediate
subject. But a few statements can be made with some confidence.
The influence of Gandhara is plain in architecture, sculpture, and
painting. The oldest works may be described as simply Gandharan but
this early style is followed by another which shows a development both
in technique and in mythology. It doubtless represents Indian Buddhist
art as modified by local painters and sculptors. Thus in the Turfan
frescoes the drapery and composition are Indian but the faces are
eastern asiatic. Sometimes however they represent a race with red hair
and blue eyes.

On the whole the paintings testify to the invasion of Far Eastern art
by the ideas and designs of Indian Buddhism rather than to an equal
combination of Indian and Chinese influence but in some forms of
decoration, particularly that employed in the Khan's palace at
Idiqutshahri,[478] Chinese style is predominant. It may be too that
the early pre-buddhist styles of painting in China and Central Asia
were similar. In the seventh century a Khotan artist called Wei-ch'ih
Po-chih-na migrated to China, where both he and his son Wei-ch'ih
I-seng acquired considerable fame.

Persian influence also is manifest in many paintings. A striking
instance may be seen in two plates published by Stein[479] apparently
representing the same Boddhisattva. In one he is of the familiar
Indian type: the other seems at first sight a miniature of some
Persian prince, black-bearded and high-booted, but the figure has four
arms. As might be expected, it is the Manichaean paintings which are
least Indian in character. They represent a "lost late antique
school"[480] which often recalls Byzantine art and was perhaps the
parent of mediaeval Persian miniature painting.

The paintings of Central Asia resemble its manuscripts. It is
impossible to look through any collection of them without feeling that
currents of art and civilization flowing from neighbouring and even
from distant lands have met and mingled in this basin. As the reader
turns over the albums of Stein, Grunwedel or Le Coq he is haunted by
strange reminiscences and resemblances, and wonders if they are merely
coincidences or whether the pedigrees of these pictured gods and men
rea