The Art Revival in Andhra

By K. RAMAKOTISWARA RAO ¹

The worship of the Beautiful is one of the principal elements in the worship of the Divine. Beautiful sights, sweet sounds and lovely thoughts, take us nearer to God. We are all trying to give a form to Him who is formless. We are not content to see Him in the glow of the sunset, in the dancing waves, the mountain tops and the depths of the forest. We try to think of Him as the babe that reposes in a tiny leaf, as the player on the flute, as the cosmic dancer. He is a million-fold more beautiful than the most beautiful forms we can dream of. Yet, these are all methods of approach to Him.

The joy that comes to us through the fine arts is not merely physical. It is a reflection of the bliss that is born of our union with the Divine. The capacity to appreciate beauty is inborn in everyone of us, but this love of beauty has to be awakened and fostered. The creators of beauty are greater by far than those who merely love it. Poets and musicians, painters and sculptors, are therefore worthy of the highest regard. The creative power of God manifests itself through them.

India has, through the ages, been famous for her achievements in the fine arts, and though foreign domination has caused a temporary set-, there are signs all around us of a great awakening. I do not propose to speak at length about the ideals or the technique of Indian Art. The subject has been rendered familiar to most of us by the writings of Mr. E. B. Havell, Doctors. Ananda Coomaraswamy, Avanindranath Tagore, J. H. Cousins and Messrs. O. C. Gangoly, G. Venkatachalam and T. G. Aravamuthan. I shall confine myself to the attempts made in Andhra for the spread of Indian Art. It is necessary that the attention of all Andhras should be focused on to them.

Whenever Indian paintings are reproduced in journals like ‘The Modern Review,’ ‘Rupam’ and ‘Triveni,’ it is usual to style them as specimens of ‘Bengal Art’. While slight variations in expression are possible over a wide continent like India, it must be recognised that the traditions and methods of Indian Art are essentially the same everywhere. Since the revival of Indian painting in recent years is due to the magnificent endeavours of E. B. Havell, Avanindranath Tagore and the students of the latter like Nandalal Bose, Asitkumar Haldar and Promo de Chatterjee, the movement has come to be associated with Bengal. But it is rapidly spreading to all provinces, and though at first sight the ‘tapering fingers’ and ‘half-shut eyes’ might appear to be strange, the appreciation of modern Indian paintings is becoming more general.

The late Kopalle Hanumantha Rao was a great advocate of this artistic revival. He was in many ways the most remarkable Andhra of his time. A few months after the starting of the Kalasala in 1910, Dr. Coomaraswamy visited the institution and delivered some lectures of Indian Art. Hanumantha Rao's one great passion, ever after, was to open a section of Oriental Painting in the Kalasala, or at any rate to send a few students to Calcutta to learn the art. But it was only in 1922, after his passing away, that the section was opened with Sjt. Promode Kumar Chatterjee as Art teacher. The Kavuta brothers –Rama Mohan and Ananda Mohan–and their sister Lakshmi Devi and Messrs. Adivi Bapiraju, T. Kesava Rao, C. N. Vasudevan, A. Subba Rao, G. Mallayya and others were students of the section and distinguished themselves by their splendid productions. Sjt. Ramendranath Chakravarti and after him G. Mallayya have been in charge of the section. Some of our students–it is my habit still to speak of the Kalasala as mine–continued their studies at Calcutta, Shantiniketan and Mysore. Through their efforts, the Art Revival in Andhra has progressed rapidly and today's exhibition is a tribute to their work.

I must here refer to the silent but powerful influence of a cultured Englishman, Mr. Oswald J. Couldrey, sometime Principal of the Rajahmundry College. He had a great fascination for our folklore, our puppet shows and our paintings. It was through contact with him that students like Kavikondala Venkata Rao and Adivi Bapiraju first composed their exquisite folk-songs. Mr. Couldrey discovered the latent genius of Damerla Rama Rao, encouraged him in his early efforts in painting, and enabled him to proceed to the Bombay School of Arts for advanced study. Mr. Couldrey took his students on prolonged tours to Ajanta, Ellora and Sanchi, and inspired them with a love for indigenous art. He is thus one of the makers of the Andhra Renaissance in Art.

Rama Rao was undoubtedly a great genius. His pictures, and more especially his landscapes, have extorted admiration all over India and abroad. It is a great calamity that he should have been cut off at the early age of 27 while yet his art was attaining perfection. Among his students, Messrs. Varada Venkataratnam and C. Satyanarayana are distinguished artists, though I have sometimes felt that there is a monotony in their themes and figures.

I want you to realise that Art is not confined to great paintings and sculptures, but pervades or ought to pervade every sphere of our existence. We should seek to make our homes and surroundings beautiful by using beautiful carpets, mats, printed cloths, carved stools and polished brass utensils. We seem to have forgotten the art of decorating our houses with ‘kolams’. There is a regular invasion of ugliness in the matter of our dress, furniture and household decoration. We are content to accept books and magazines printed and bound hideously and filled with ugly advertisements. All this must be changed. Exhibitions like the present give us an opportunity to worship the Beautiful and realise the God within us.