Rajput Painting: Romantic Divine and Courtly Art from India; Roda Ahluwalia, Mapin Publishing, Rs.900.
A visual panorama that draws the viewer into bygone worlds, a Rajput painting is more than just a nostalgic overview of an imperial age. It is not a photograph from the past, but rather a flowing narrative that tells a story of its own and incites th e viewer to weave yet another story around it. The prominent themes of Rajput paintings are depictions of religious and literary texts, of war heroes and courtly majesty.
There are two levels to appreciating art: one as the oeuvre of the artist, flaunting its technique and content; the other is to understand art as a manifestation of its socio-political context, a cultural production with layers of interpretation. Roda Ahluwalia examines Rajput painting at both levels, with special emphasis on the latter. The book is an overview of the history of the art form, illustrated with works from the rich collections of the British Museum and the British Library.
It elucidates the formative parameters that characterised a Rajput painting and how the art with the spirit of the Hindu classical tradition accrues Mughal influences to yield a style that is pluralistic in themes, content and technique.
Paradox
Juxtaposing the Hindu idea of an absolute presence made manifest through multiple forms with the Islamic emphasis on the visual medium, both alien ideas to each other, the Rajput art form was to be an interesting paradox of sorts, transposing corporeal forms to visual medium, an amalgam of two belief systems.
The discussion stresses how the Bhakti movement of the cult of Krishna along with the stable reign of an extremely tolerant art patron, Akbar, led to a golden age of Rajput paintings.
Armed with a solid background, Ahluwalia takes the reader (the term ‘reader’ may not be completely appropriate for one is as much a ‘viewer’ of the rich canvases that beautifully complement the vivid descriptions) through a broad picture of the themes that were most commonly adopted — romance, divinity and courtly portraiture.
Unifying factor
This section explores how metaphors and allusions found in classical Hindu literature are transformed into the emotional and symbolic content of the visual medium. The author points out how the experience of the nine rasas or emotional states — love, mirth, sorrow, anger, heroism, fear, disgust, astonishment and tranquillity — is the unifying factor of the visual and performing arts.
The commentary on the close ties of the paintings to music and poetry is supplemented by appropriate paintings and verses and the word to image translation is unfurled by drawing attention to every element in the painting whose meaning is attributed to some part of the parent verse.
The latter part of the book goes on to look at local variations of the art form in the principalities of Rajasthan, Central India and Punjab. The interest of a general reader, however, begins to slacken for it delves into the intricacies of local manifestations in great detail. The differences between the chapters and kingdoms begin to blur and may be reserved for a seasoned art connoisseur or an intense enthusiast.
Irrespective of this, the constant mediation between the poetry of the written word and the beauty of the visual forms make for extremely experiential reading.
The strength of the book lies in the juxtaposition of facts with romance; of ascription with interpretations to ensure that the book remains well-grounded in historical evidence yet liberated enough through personal comment. This simultaneously renders it an objective as well as a subjective account of a school of art through which lives on a world of hues, majesty, romance and dreams.
No comments:
Post a Comment