Gleanings

Abanindranath Tagore to Artists

SRI GURDIAL MALLIK writing in The Aryan Path for March 1943, gives the following quotations of the great artist’s words to students who were going out to make sketches;

"Do not draw an object or a scene as soon as you see it. That the camera will be able to do more quickly and realistically. You, who aspire to be artists, should observe whatever your eyes fall upon, not only with outer sight but also with insight. Never take up your pencil and paper unless and until what you have seen, day after day, in all its variety of tints and tones, has taken on wings to fly to the vision of its ideal and infinite prototype.

"Nature has a vast memory, in which endless types are stored. You cannot see or study each and every type, far less make a copy of it. And even if you were able to do this, you would be but making a copy of a copy. Then why not be like Nature in this respect? Envisage, with the aid of wonder-spurred imagination, the divine dynamic archetype and reproduce it in your own work?

"In the presence of Nature always be humble and stand before her hallowed with the hush of holiness. You are her children. So she desires primarily to see you play in her courtyard which is also her cathedral. All art is play,–play of the Beautiful. The universe is His delightful sport. A real artist is less of a pedagogue and more of a playmate."

Songs of Rural India

SHRI DEVENDRA SATYARTHI lectured under P. E. N. auspices on the 19th April, on Indian Folk-songs to the collection of which he has dedicated his life…..

The ordinary histories of India, Shri Satyarthi said, told us of kings and conquests, of battles and bloodshed. But the real history of India, the way people had lived all these centuries was embedded in the rural songs. The heart of Mother India beats to their rhythm. In them she opened her heart to us. Eternal verities like God, the clouds, the good earth, the cycle of birth, life and death, love, longing and sorrow, human relationships, in fact all that constitutes a simple appeal to the permanent elements of human nature, were the recurring motifs, whether the song came from Kashmere or from Kerala. The relations between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, the longing of the lonely wife for her absent husband, found expression in a variety of ways. Shri Satyarthi recited folk-songs from Gujerat and Rajaputana which, but for minor differences of detail, were almost identical in theme and sentiment. The same could be said of most songs from different parts of India. Though often the local colouring changed, the essential unity of theme and sentiment persisted through all their varied expressions and proved irrefutably the basic unity of Indian life and culture.

If poetry was the expression of a full heart, Shri Satyarthi said, in folk-songs we saw poetry at its very source, He cited a peasant’s answer to his question why he composed a song, that when the song came to him he had to sing it as inevitably as a rain-cloud must pour down its contents.

On the printed page the songs were dull and lifeless, like dry leaves on a botanist’s table. Music and rhythm were their life. The collector of folk-songs had therefore to catch the original melody of the pieces and not merely the words. The rural dances went hand-in-hand with the songs. The collection and preservation of these receptacles of much that was beautiful, vital and ancient in Indian culture was no unimportant task. (The Indian P.E.N.–June, 1943)

Symbolism in Indian Art

(In the course of an informing article Prof. A. S. NARAYANA PILLAI, M.A., M.Litt writes in the Vedanta Kesari, May 1943):

The symbolism of Indian art is based on the congruity between form and meaning. In its finest paintings, sculptures or poems, there is a beautiful blending of expression and idea. There is no endowing of objects with artificial significance, no super-adding of meaning to a chosen form.

The technique of attaining this aesthetic synthesis is elaborate in the art treatises of ancient India. In poetry rules are laid down which aim at producing a harmonious blending of diction and subject-matter. The diction is the body, the subject matter the soul of poetry.

In painting and image-making the rules of symbolism are indeed elaborate. From Vishnudharmottara (5th cent. A.D.) we learn, to take just one instance, that rivers are to be represented in human shape, but should stand on their vahanas, knees should be bent and their hands should hold full pitchers…………

It is this symbolism that gives meaning to Indian sculpture and distinguishes the Hindu worship of images from idolatry. The pratima or image expresses a deep principle. The sculptor is interested in symbolic representation of philosophic truths or subjective experiences and not in copying natural forms.

In architecture, too, this is the guiding principle. The design indicates a mental scheme, a subjective and symbolic meaning.

In both acting and dancing, abhinaya or gesticular action form a main part. Abhinaya is an elaborate system of symbolic expression. The word literally means, ‘that which leads to or points to (an idea)’. Abhinaya enters into both kinds of dance; the lasya where the dancer sits and performs the gesticular movements, and the tandava, where the dancer stands and does the movements. The gestures have been worked out into a perfect system and the rules are laid down in the code of dancing. Poses of the body, vocal expressions and expressions of mental states are all included in abhinaya, which may be regarded as the accepted gesture-language sanctified by usage and tradition. Bharata, the celebrated author of the Natyasastra, describes in the eighth chapter of the book, thirteen poses of the head, thirty-six kinds of glances, nine different movements of the eye-balls, nine types of action of the eye-lids, seven of the eye-brows, seven kinds of nose-movements, six poses of the cheek region, six movements each of the lower lip, chin and mouth and four types of colouration of the face

This all-comprehensive symbolism of Indian art rescues it from being merely imitative or realistic and gives it its uniqueness and charm. Indian art does not merely thrill or intoxicate; it elevates us. It touches our soul and changes our being.

The Art of Ranada Ukil

Prof. B. C. BHATTACHARYA, M.A., F.R.G.S. (Edin) writing in the Modern Review, June 1943, has the following on the art of Ranada Ukil

Soon after he had finished his educational career in the Government School of Art, and the Indian Society of Oriental Art in Calcutta…he began to produce original paintings of great merit which gave him a rank among the first-rate artists of India. In 1926, he won the Viceroy’s prize, a rare award given to the foremost work of a painter. In 1929, Ranada Ukil was chosen as one of the four eminent artists who were commissioned by the Government of India to travel to England and paint the walls and the dome of the "India House" in London….

After a successful career in England...Mr. Ukil without caring for any government post went to Delhi and took up the work of the Director of the Ukil’s School of Art founded by his elder brother. Now began the real period of his artistic creativity. Within a period of seven years, Mr. Ranada Ukil painted a gallery of paintings, which won for him laurels of praise from all the cultured people of India...

The delicate lines, the colour-scheme, a special toning and texture which characterises his paintings, are indeed the essential qualities of Ukil's art. Mr. Ranada Ukil is a brilliant colourist: his colours are outspoken, his decorative figures hued with a mixture of colours throw a dazzling impression upon the mind of the spectator. I venture to think as a layman that the brilliant tints which he now uses in his pictures may take a new turn, and like his elder brother Sarada Ukil’s, his art may appear in an original scheme of colouring, sometimes subdued, sometimes strong but always alluring our eyes to a transcendental world of Aurora Borealis.

In 1940, after the death of his beloved brother, Ranada Ukil buried his pencil and brush in the soil of Delhi, and came down to Benares to make the choicest offerings of his art at the feet of the great God Siva, the Nataraja of dancing, the father of Music and Muses. His settlement in Benares, his opening of a Schoel of Art in the city and a painting class in the Benares Hindu University, augur well and herald a welcome revival of art, which this ancient city deserves so urgently at the present moment...

What is Literature?

The Aryan Path (April 1943) publishes the scholarly paper of PANDIT AMARNATH JHA, Vice-Chancellor of the Allahabad University, giving a comprehensive survey of the canons of literature and literary appreciation as laid down; both in European and Indian languages. The following is a short extract from the paper:

"It is a great utterance, a cry of a great spirit at the sight of the life he sees-a sigh, a smile, or a cheer–tears or laughter or ecstasy–an expression of the mind of a man, of his race, yes, of his age, but to be really great, it must be an expression of the mind of Everyman….. Like Wordsworth’s skylark, it is true to the kindred points of heaven and home. It expresses the spirit of the age, but, transcending it, it expresses universal human truth which alone can invest it with immortality. It is true that no man can walk abroad save on his own shadow; the artist’s personality is certain to be reflected in his work, thought and sensibility; the characteristics of the race and country to which he belongs will find their way to his work; the environments in which he has been brought up and lives the conditions of his life, the circumstances of hardship or comfort that are his lot, will impress his art. But there will always be–there must always be–something else that can ensure permanence; and that is liberty–freedom from the shackles of circumstance and convention, from the limitations of time and space, from the beliefs and ordinances and laws of his country and his age. Art is free. Freedom is the breath of its nostrils. Freedom, not escape; or, if it is escape, it is escape from the hot-house atmosphere of the prison to the fresh air without. That is how Art is without age. That is how it appeals to everyone and is ever fresh and ever young. No hungry generation can tread it down; it never sheds its leaves, nor ever bids the spring adieu. Lenin declared that Liberty is a bourgeois illusion. Art and Literature will meet their doom once liberty denied to the artist and man of letters. Great literature cannot be manufactured to order, whether it be the order of the bourgeois or proletariat. The rich patrons of the past were no more able to dictate to the artist than the mighty dictators of today can command the production of anything durable. Hegel’s observation is true that the history of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of Freedom. Whatever unholy deeds may ravage the world, even though ruthless warriors should wage incessant wars, in Art is freedom, joy, and light, and certitude and peace."