Towards an etho'archaeology of Bengal writings of E.B. Havell and A.K. Coomaraswamy were available to him, and he had a friend in Stella Kramrisch. With this configuration of factors he could have documented the materials, techniques and processes of the arts and crafts of Bengal; he could have traced their historical evolution; he could have thrown light on the social, religious and cultural 52 contexts in which these arts flourished; he could have recorded the mythological and ritual background of the arts; he could have studied the various geographical and historical currents and influences that enriched the styles of the arts of Bengal; he could have examined the two-way flow of influences within the urban-rural continuum. He chose not to do any of these. Unfortunately, he was carried away by a sweeping vision of Bengali patriotism. He saw the folk arts of Bengal as 'preserving unbroken continuity with the remotest traditions of pre-Aryan Indian culture and yet absorbing all that was best in Aryan philosophy and metaphysics and fusing them all into a unified whole, that did not come into its own till after it was freed from the all-Indian cultural domination of the imperial-cum-priestly marga of the Gupta and Pala periods.' He saw Bengali culture Gurusaday Dutt watches Matam Chitrakar working on a chauka "^G 01' ^SS BS a closed Sys- ^ tern in which the racial factor ' ir^' ^ was central and the blossom- ^P ing of even the extraneous ^& artistic influences was on account of that factor: I have deliberately spoken of the Bengali people and the folk arts of Bengal and not in more general terms of the Indian people and the folk arts of India; for although, politically, Indians aspire to a united life, and although the different races inhabiting the Indian continent are pervaded by a common culture and a common outlook on life, yet, in matters relating to art, growth and develop- Journal of Arts ^ Ideas